International Journal of Chinese Language Teaching (Oct 2021)
The Sociocultural-Cognitive Underpinnings in Error Correction: A Descriptive Study on Acquisition of Chinese Tones
Abstract
This study investigates how teachers can best assist students of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) in acquiring Chinese tones in the classroom by analyzing: (a) the differences between students’ tonal errors in classroom interaction and in reading sentences aloud; (b) the types of teachers’ error treatments; (c) the relationship between students’ tonal errors and their perspectives on error corrections; (d) the relationship between teachers’ error corrections in classrooms and their perspectives on tonal errors and corrective feedback. The data sources included audio recordings of 15 hours of classroom visits to 5 teachers’ first-year classes, 2 hours of 26 students’ performance on a tonal achievement oral test, and teachers’ and students’ surveys. Results indicate that the degree of attention to speech in different settings causes variations in tonal error patterns. Students who preferred self-correction made fewer tonal errors in the reading aloud tests. Among all linguistic explanations, describing the pitch contour of tones was the least preferred error treatment strategy for the teachers and students. Simply asking students to repeat teachers’ model of appropriate tones without any additional guidance constituted the least effective but most frequently used corrective strategy. The teachers also often ignored tonal errors and expected students to overcome their problems by memorizing Chinese tones. In agreement with the Vygotskyan perspective that perceives the nature of error correction as a collaborative activity, the findings show that successful error corrections require teachers and students to co-construct the linguistic knowledge and transition from external corrective interaction to students’ self-assistance. Based on these findings, it suggested how teachers can strategically correct tonal errors.
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