Some Differences Between English and Chinese and the Negative Transfer of Mother Tongue in EFL Learning

The paper discusses 3 significant differences between Chinese and English. It proposes that because of the differences, the transfer of mother tongue into the target language tends to appear in the negative form. The negative transfer of Chinese into English is the major cause of the so-called Chinglish. The paper states some forms of the negative transfer.

Review of Issues of Language Assessments for Non-native Speakers of English

The paper reviews issues in language assessment, especially pertaining to the challenges faced in examining non-native speakers of English. The review revealed that low proficiency levels of well-established standard varieties of English affect the test achievement of non-native speakers across the world. Furthermore, the absence and improper evaluation of English tests, coupled with poor educational systems in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean lead to very low achievement in English. Based on the review, the paper recommends the use of accommodation, culture-specific designed tests, and more research as remedy for the problems. Areas of future research for Africa and specifically, Ghana are recommended.

Foreign Language Teacher Recruitment： Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Findings

In some contexts such as private language schools of Iran language teachers are recruited mainly on the basis of their speaking fluency and in other EFL contexts they are recruited simply because they are native speakers. Moreover, previous studies mainly focus on comparing the effectiveness of native and non-native language teachers by exploring learners＇ and teachers＇ perceptions of native and non-native language teachers. Since recruitment criteria are theoretically unjustified and the results of previous studies are subjective and inconclusive, this study aims at making a case in the opposite direction. That is, the researchers argue that there should be： （1） a shift away from recruiting language teachers on the basis of their speaking fluency and native language background towards hiring language teachers on the basis of their professional performance in the language classroom; （2） a shift away from exploring learners＇ and teachers＇ perceptions of native and non-native teachers towards studying the effect of teachers＇ native language on learners＇ proficiency, accuracy, fluency, and achievement. To pave the way for these shifts, this study first reviews the theoretical perspectives and empirical findings concerning effective language teachers and then draws conclusions and implications which help interested stakeholders, i.e., supervisors, make informed decisions when they recruit language teachers.

Courtesy Language Research Based on Letter Style

Politeness principle, cooperation principle, social protocols, guidelines on the session, face preservation contract theory, as well as ＂politeness five criteria＂ of Chinese characteristics, and a series of principles and theories related to domestic and foreign research polite language provides a solid foundation, rich nutrients and scientific way of thinking for Chinese ＂polite language＂. This article combined with stylistic letter, takes ＂Fu Lei Letter＂ as the corpus to study online behavior polite language.

A genre analysis of medical abstracts by Chinese and English native speakers

This study presents statistical results of a comparison between English abstracts in a leading intemational medical journal and those in a Chinese one. With a genre analysis and discussion of linguistic features of these abstracts, the paper points out the weak points in the abstracts by Chinese writers and provides some suggestions for writing abstracts of medical research articles

The Realization of Politeness Strategies in Children＇s Refusal： A Case Study of Parents＇ Educational Background on Children＇s Utterances

Language as a means of communication is represented in two basic forms, written and spoken. Spoken is the first form mastered by language speaker, particularly children. Speech community consists of adult and children. In producing their utterance, children are supposed to be affected by their parents. As a result of different educational background of their parents, children may produce different utterances including refusal. Children from different parents＇ educational background vary their refusal. The tendency that the higher parents＇ educational background will result the more polite refusal produced by children is not proved.

On the Cultural Differences between Chinese and English Speaking People in Their Thinking Modes from the Perspective of Second Language Acquisition

The recent years have witnessed increasing opportunities for people from various cultural backgrounds to communicate with each other, which is naturally based on a general grasp of cultural knowledge and communicative techniques in cross-cultural settings. However, there often exist cultural clashes in such cases, especially between Chinese and English speaking people, which are deeply rooted in the wide differences in their languages and thinking modes. Indeed, this also serves to be an important part in the acquisition of the English culture for Chinese students in the current educational climate. The paper is intended to provide a contrastive analysis of the major cultural differences between Chinese and English speaking people in their thinking modes in three aspects of the descriptive versus the formal, the concrete versus the abstract, and the practical versus the logical form the linguistic perspective. And the paper comes to the conclusion that a general understanding of these significant differences may enable Chinese-speaking people and English-speaking people to establish a more efficient communication with each other.

A Corpus-Based Study of Adverbial Connectors in Native and Non-native Students＇ Writing

In writing and speaking, adverbial connectors always play a part to connect different parts together at both semantic and syntactic aspects. For it is so important that a lot of scholars have made and are making a series of studies to their functions. On the basis of corpus-based study, this paper firstly makes a comparison to the usage of adverbial connectors in their writings of the native students and non-native students and then exposes a distinctive gap between these two types of writings in usage of adverbial connectors. In order to help Chinese second-language learners acquire English as well as English native speakers do, this study deeply digs this gap and in further provides several pedagogical suggestions for English teachers and second-language learners.

On L2 English Learners’Formulaic Language Use and Spoken English Fluency

This study explored the distribution of three types of English formulaic language, which involves four categories in L1 Chinese L2 English learners’ speaking performance. In addition, it investigated the relationship between the English learners’ use of formulaic language and their spoken English fluency. A CCA(canonical correlation analysis) was conducted to examine the correlations between two sets of fluency variables(dependent variables) and linguistic variables of English formulaic language use(independent variables). The fluency variable set consists of:(1)temporal indices such as SR(speech rate), AR(articulation rate), MLR(mean length of run), and PTR(phonation time ratio);(2) linguistic variables of English formulaic language like F2 R(twoword formulaic sequences/run ratio, B3 R(three-word lexical bundles/run ratio), and B4 R(fourword lexical bundles/run ratio). These are calculated according to the frequency of the English formulaic language in the speech samples of the participants(n = 86) across three academic levels.The results indicate that the learners’ spoken English fluency is highly related to their use of English formulaic language. Its limitations and future research directions are also discussed.

Aspects of Urhobo Grammar Taught Through Poetry： The Verb ＂Edia＂ to Be

Unquestionably, anyone born to Urhobo parents, being biologically Urhobo, should speak the Urhobo language. But does everybody born by an Urhobo parent speak Urhobo？ From our observation, the answer to this question is clearly ＂no＂. Many of the Urhobo people in the Diaspora as well as those at home have chosen to shift from their own language to other languages. Hence Urhobo language has gradually acquired the status of a second language. Therefore, its teaching would also veer away from language teaching methods that are used for first languages. Based on Noam Chomsky＇s theory of Generative Grammar, aspects of the Urhobo grammar will be treated as we present specifically the verb ＂edia＂/＂to be＂. As it is, it is being presented as a second language bearing in mind the great population of Urhobo people in the Diaspora as well as Mowarin＇s ＂miguo generation＂ of Urhobo children back home in Urhobo land. This being so, the methods applied in this study are the Grammar Translation Method Approach as well as the Direct Method Approach. To facilitate its learning especially for the new generation of Urhobo persons, the poetic approach would also be applied.

Multilingualism and the Choice of a Language for Anglophone Education in Cameroon

This paper seeks to do three things： （1） examine the linguistic situation of Cameroon; （2） identify the language（s） used in education; and （3） discuss whether in the light of the social linguistic evidence, the current choice of language for education （English） is well motivated. The methodology employed is a socio-lin some randomly selected urban centers in Cameroon for example, Buea, Bamenda, Kumba, guistic survey of etc.. The results suggest among other things： （1） that Cameroon is a highly multilingual country with over 280 home languages and （2） that while English is the language for Anglophone education, Pidgin English is actually the predominant language and the first language for most Anglophones. Based on these findings, the author proposes Pidgin English as the choice language for early education in Anglophone Cameroon （the southwest and northwest regions）. Pidgin English is the only language which expresses Cameroonian reality. It is spoken by more than 70% of the population. It is the only language that is not associated with a particular tribe, religion, or with a specific colonial government.

1～3岁幼儿语音能力培养

作为父母,谁不希望自己的孩子长大了伶牙俐齿呢?但多数父母常把注意力集中在孩子的组词、造句、记忆等能力的训练上,对语音能力的培养就不太重视。他们可能认为孩子尚小。只要说的话大人能听懂就行。其实不然,正确的发音应该从幼儿期就注意训练。那么,怎样培养幼儿语音能力呢? 一、父母语言一致。并尽量说得规范。父母是孩子接触最多的人,如果父母用两种音调说话。

父母与子女对话的技巧

在每个人的一生中,都或多或少地受过父母的责备。但责备孩子的确是一个技巧问题,或者说是一种教育艺术。责备孩子的方法,能决定孩子智能的成长,因此,我们作父母的不应该轻视方法。方法对头,事事功倍,方法不对,事倍功半。责备孩子有分寸感,父母语言的模式往往起很大作用,同样意思的话,换一种说法就会起到很好的效果,比如反“

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.

The Effects of Recasts and Working Memory on the Development of Implicit and Explicit Knowledge

This paper aims to investigate the effects of recasts and working memory on the acquisition of Korean morphological causatives by advanced Chinese learners of Korean. Participants were randomly assigned to two groups： A experimental group and a control group. The experimental group received intensive recasts during task-based interaction, whereas the control group did not. The effects of recasts were measured by two types of tests： An elicited imitation test, as a measure of implicit knowledge, and an untimed grammaticality judgment test, as a measure of explicit knowledge. The findings are as follows. First, from the pretest to the delayed posttest, recasts facilitated the learners＇ acquisition of causative construction by developing both their implicit and explicit knowledge. Second, the results of delayed posttests showed that recasts were more effective in aiding the development of implicit knowledge than explicit knowledge. Third, working memory was found to be a significant covariate in the facilitative effects of recasts on explicit knowledge; that is, it mediated the development of explicit knowledge via recasts as a significant individual difference factor. The effects of recasts were maintained even when the impact of working memory was controlled. （189 words）