Problems for Learners in China

One of the major problems that ESL teachers have is the transference of the students native grammar rules to English. Many students, if they don't know the rule of English will automatically fall back to the rule of their first language. The result is a poor form of English, sometimes referred to as "Chinglish".

One of the areas that this is commonly noticed, is in Chinese they don't have to worry about gender except when writing. In English we use the pronouns "he" and "she", "him" and "her" to distinguish who we are talking about in a conversation, whereas in Mandarin it is not as important to keep track of the gender. The result is, if this part of English speech is not clearly understood, even intermediate students can get mixed up with which pronoun to use in a sentence. This can make even well enunciated speech hard to follow.

The complexity of the English language is probably partly to blame for the difficulty faced by many Chinese learners of English. This may be exacerbated in that many teachers find it difficult to teach the rules of English when there are so many exceptions to them. Many native speakers of English know how to speak English well, without being able to explain the rules of grammar easily. To them it just "sounds right that particular way".

Another problem can be phonology. Most aspects of the English phonological system cause difficulties for Chinese learners. Some English phonemes do not exist in Chinese; stress and intonation patterns are different. Unlike English, Chinese is a tonal language. So whereas in English, changes in pitch are used to emphasize or express emotion, in Chinese it changes the meaning of the word.

Another problem Chinese learners face is finding it difficult to hear the difference between l and r , and sometimes "l and n" and may mispronounce words like "river" to "liver". Although this may be humorous to native English speakers, it can be a source of frustration and a roadblock to good communication for the Chinese student.

Alphabet also raises a hurdle. The Chinese language does not use an alphabet but uses a logographic system for its written language. Each character represents a particular meaning, unlike English where words are made up of individual letters with no meaning, but are sounds. Because of this fundamental difference, Chinese learners may have great difficulty reading English texts and spelling words correctly.

Phrasal verbs can also cause problems because English has a number of short verbs that very commonly combine with particles (adverbs or prepositions) to form expressions such as "take on", "give in", "make do with" and "look up to". This kind of lexical feature does not exist in Chinese. So Chinese learners may find it hard to comprehend these when they come across them in written texts and spoken speech. One way we may be able to make it easier for the Chinese learner is to explain they work in a similar way to their 4 character idioms. In the Chinese language, 4 characters can make up an expression that is a based on a short story. This adds meaning and depth to the spoken and written language. In the same way, these English phrasal verbs mean more than the individual meaning of each word; they combine to add extra meaning.

Although the problems teaching English may be varied, a resourceful TESOL teacher can use knowledge of the students' native tongue to be able to teach in an effective way. Knowledge of these problems could address potential roadblocks to the students language acquisition, and give them the best possible outcome.