How jeffery and greg learned mandarin

 In our project, we interviewed two native speakers of English, Jeffery and Greg, and found out how they have been learning Chinese..  Differences: Greg did not go to school to learn

Final Project of Foreign

Language Learners

How Jeffery and Greg learned

Mandarin 9231320 Christine Wu 9231346 Randi 9231392 Kacey

9231340 Christine Yang 9231366 Maureen

9231344 Kelly 9231388 Selena

 In our project, we interviewed two native speakers of

English, Jeffery and Greg, and found out how they have

been learning Chinese Now we would like to show you the differences and similarities between their ways of learning Chinese and our ways of learning English

Nationality Canada

Time in Taiwan more than 3

Motivation Not really strong.

Similarities & Differences

 Similarities: They all started to learn Mandarin when they came to Taiwan Their purposes are the same

because they want to communicate with Taiwanese people They use Mandarin in their daily lives They both think writing is hard They think their strength is listening.

 Differences: Greg did not go to school to learn

Mandarin while Jeffery went to school to learn

Mandarin Jeffery’s Chinese is very good, but he still thinks his speaking ability is not good enough Greg

 Their motivation affects their learning attitudes Jeffery’s incentive is stronger than Greg’s Jeffery came to Taiwan in order to learn Chinese while Greg

came here just want to make money

by teaching English

puzzles, problem-solving exercises, to learn through

movies and videos, one-on-one conversation practice,

analyze his own performance

Similarities & Differences

 Because Greg did not go to school to learn

Chinese, it’s difficult for him to learn in groups and write journals He can only learn Mandarin from

daily-life interactions when kindergarten children or his colleagues talk to him, then he can pick up

some key words which are often used The survey shows that Jeffery is stronger in both logical-

mathematical intelligence and interpersonal

intelligence while Greg is stronger in interpersonal intelligence.

Theoretical Approaches

to Explaining Their Language Learning

So he keeps saying these terms to have fun with others What

he has learned most in Chinese is this kind of terms

 Interactionism

 People use simple vocabulary, speak slowly, and give many simple examples to explain their ideas to help him understand Chinese This is helpful for him to acquire Chinese

 Behaviorism

 -Jeffery learns Chinese by listening to people’s conversation and then imitating their accents and usages Then he goes out to practice it often with others

 -He learns new words by writing them down, asking others their meanings, then memorizing them, and goes out using them to speak to others

 -He keeps on using the language he has acquired though he learns many different ways

He enjoys being alone, and solving problems on his own, which helps him have good study skills and ways to learn the language

The Individual

Learner

 This questionnaire tells us how

often they use strategies that they can do it by themselves.

 The result of their questionnaires

Jeffery Greg

Score 54 28

 Jeffery uses individual learning

strategies more often.

 Greg seldom uses individual learning strategies

1.The Internet:

We can get much information through it

It can improve our reading ability.

2 Sing Songs:

It will help your pronunciation while you have some fun.

3 Keep a Diary:

It can improve our writing ability.

4 Make Conversations with Others:

It can improve not only the speaking ability but also the listening one.

 The more often we practice on our

own, the more progress we can make.

Comparing First and Second Language

Learning

 Q1: Do you recall how you’ve learned your native language, or have you noticed how a child learns to speak, read, and write his/her native language? Please share your

experience and/or observation with others

 Q2: Based on your learning experience,

what similarities and differences do you

notice between learning your native

language and learning a foreign language like Chinese?

There are five tone patterns in Chinese; that is,

笨笨 , 笨笨 , 笨笨 , 笨笨 , 笨笨 It is not easy for nonnative speakers of Chinese to distinguish

The Learning Channel

Preference

 Visual learner:

The one who will learn better when he/she reads

or sees the information

 Auditory learner:

The one who will learn better when information

comes through his/her ears

 Haptic learner:

The one who will learn best by doing, moving, or hands-on experiences

After they did this survey, the results show that

they are both visual learners.

As Visual Learners

 Jeffery usually does but Greg seldom does so:

1) Jeffery can remember things better if he write them down 2) When Jeffery is trying to remember something new, for

example, a telephone number, it helps him to form a picture

of it in his head

 Greg usually does but Jeffery seldom does so:

1) It’s easy for Greg to understand maps, charts, and graphs

2) Greg cannot remember a joke long enough to tell it later 3) When Greg gets a great idea, he must write it down right

away or he’ll forget it

As Auditory Learners

 Jeffery usually does but Greg seldom does

so :

1) When reading, Jeffery listens to the words

in his head or he reads aloud 2) Jeffery can easily follow a speaker even though his head

is down or he’s staring out the window.

Greg usually does but Jeffery seldom does so:

1) When learning something new, Greg

prefers to listen to information on it, then read

 People who have the same learning preference still have performances in different levels.

 Their performances are affected by some other factors.

 Greg thinks that not being able to speak

Chinese perfectly is ok

 He does not mind making mistakes.

 Jeffery says that he’s afraid of making

mistakes.

 He’s also worried that if he does not

pronounce the words correctly, nobody will understand him

 Peer pressure also bothers him, too.

 From the results of the questionnaire,

we can say that Greg’s language ego

is higher than Jeffery’s

For this part, we asked Jeffery and Greg to choose a few hypotheses to talk about and explain how they could be applied to their own second language learning.

 Greg mostly learns Chinese by listening to what others say and by imitating them This

is why most of the hypothesis do not apply

to him However Jeffery has more

motivation to learn Chinese than Greg does, and the different hypothesis they use should also affect their foreign language learning This is why Jeffery’s Chinese is far better

than Greg’s.

Assessment of Strategy Use

To analyze how Jeffery and Greg learn

Mandarin.

Both of them started learning Mandarin from listening

Jeffery: If I don’t understand somebody say, I will keep on listening until I get the clue what they said and ask somebody later what they said.

Greg: I learn Chinese by osmosis I just listen to people saying and put them in my head I try to remember them In the kindergarten, everyone speaks Chinese all day.

Jeffery: I try to use the sentence patterns which the teachers teach in class and go use them outside and in class Usually somebody will correct me and I won’t forget them because it embarrassed me.

 Speaking strategies

Greg cannot speak Mandarin except for some simple words However, Jeffery can have a fluent conversation in Mandarin in many topics such as politics and business.

1) He memorizes the dialogues which he learnt in class and then

rehearses the situation in his head He will try to use another way if

he dose not know how to say a word in Mandarin,

2) He takes every opportunity to practice speaking with native

Mandarin than Greg does, he keeps using many

strategies to improve his Mandarin ability

language learning strategies However, merely input but

no output is hard to learn a foreign language well,

especially in speaking

However, it is easy to know them, but doing them is

another story Jeffery holds a belief that practice makes perfect, so his Mandarin improves rapidly in three years

 Motivation indeed has much influence in their language learning processes

 Both of them know many effective language

learning strategies However, it is easy to know them, but it may not be so easy to use them well.

 The more often we practice the language, the more progress we can make.

Summary