Unsuccessful letter–sound integration in English reading by native Chinese speakers: evidence from an event related potentials study

Integrating letters and sounds are essential for successful reading in alphabetic languages. It remains unclear if native speakers of non-alphabetic languages integrate letters and sounds in reading an alphabetic lan- guage in the same way as native alphabetic readers do. Chinese is a morpho-syllabic system （each character cor- responds to one syllable） and contrasts sharply with alphabetic languages such as English. Several fMRI studies have shown that native Chinese speakers apply their native language system to read English words. By using the cross- modal mismatch negativity （MMN） paradigm, we directly investigated letter-sound integration for reading in English among native Chinese speakers. To investigate the effect of native language background on letter-sound integration in second language reading, a group of native Korean English learners served as a comparison group. We compared MMN responses between an auditory only condition （only vowels presented） and two audiovisual conditions （AV0, vowel presented synchronously with the corresponding letter; AV200, the letter presented 200 ms before the corresponding vowel） for both native Chinese and native Korean speakers. Native Chinese speakers demonstrated significantly attenuated MMN amplitudes in audiovisual conditions compared with the auditory only condition, regardless of their phonological decoding speed. In con- trast, native Korean speakers showed amplified amplitude MMN in AV200 compared with that in the auditory only condition. The results suggest that native language may shape the brain responses of second language learners to reading a second language in the early stages. Native non- alphabetic language speakers may be unable to use visual information to facilitate their phonological processing in the early stage while naT：lye alphabetic language speakers are capable of integrating letter sounds automatically.

"Nativeness" and Intelligibility:Impacts of Intercultural Experience Through English as a Lingua Franca on Chinese Speakers' Language Attitudes

This paper investigates the impacts of intercultural experience through English as a lingua franca （ELF） on language attitudes, with the focus on Chinese speakers＇ narratives of ELF experience in relation to their views of Englishes. The data retrieved through 769 questionnaires and 35 interviews with Chinese users of English revealed the impacts in four aspects. First, the lack of ELF experience helps to maintain the assumption that conformity to native English is necessary for interactants to understand each other. Second, ELF experience triggers the question about the exclusive connection between nativeness and intelligibility. Third, it raises challenges to the exclusive relevance of native English for successful intercultural communication. Fourth, it helps to develop an awareness of intercultural communication strategies as important for communicative effectiveness in the context of the diversity of English. Attitudes revealed in the four aspects all point to a concern with the issue what is intelligible English. This paper thus discusses intelligibility in relation to （non-） nativeness and the role of intercultural experience in making sense of the issue of intelligibility, which leads to the exploration of pedagogical implications of this study.

Chinese Native Speakers' Counterfactuals Revisited

This paper examines whether or not Chinese native speakers (CNSs) have difficulties in understanding English counterfactuals, whether CNSs have counterfactual reasoning problems in their own language, what the causes of these difficulties may be, and the problems in teaching English subjunctives. It also proposes on how to improve CNSs’ English counterfactual comprehension.

Theoretical Research of Chinese International Teaching in the Last Ten Years (2009-2018)

This review involved 234 theoretical research papers chosen from 13783 theses of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages in China's Mainland during the period 2009-2018.Theoretical research mainly includes two parts,theoretical analysis and theoretical application.The theoretical analysis and summary did not touch the core of the basic theory,and the macro height and depth were insufficient.Theoretical application rarely applied theories of this subject,mostly borrowed theories of other subjects to conduct experiments.There are more questions.The problems lead to doubt about the reliability of the thesis conclusion.For this reason,this review concludes with recommendations for Chinese researchers.

Research on TCSOL Master Course Setting

Through questionnaires,discussions,interviews,classroom observations and other methods,this paper implements a study on the curriculum of Master of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages(MTCSOL)at Yunnan Normal University.It was found that problems lied in many aspects,including the lack of teachers,teaching content being not cutting-edge and not meeting the teaching goals,and the shortage of teaching materials suitable for the training goals.Finally,relevant suggestions are proposed based on the analysis.