22. How many tenses exist in this language? The concept of time in Chinese is not handled through the use of different tenses and verb forms, as it is in English.
23. What are they? Mandarin Chinese has no grammatical tense, instead indicating time of action from the context or using adverbs. However, the auxiliary verb 会 huì, a modal meaning "can", "know how", can alternatively indicate futurity.[3]:p.265;[13]:p.183 For lexical futurity, the word 要 yào, which can serve as a verb meaning "to want", can also serve as an adverb meaning "immediately":[13]:p. 175 For example, 我要洗澡 wǒ yào xǐzǎo can mean either "I want to bathe" or "I am about to bathe".
24. The word order of this language is:
Verb, subject, object (VSO)
Subject, verb, object (SVO)
Object, verb, subject (OVS)
Verb, object, subject (VOS)
Subject, object, verb (SOV)
Lacks a dominant word order
25. What are the punctuation forms used in this language? Mandarin uses punctuation equivalent to: Period (Full Stop), Comma, Enumeration Comma, Colon, Semi-colon, Question Mark, Exclamation Mark and Quotation Marks.
26. How does this language mark gender? In modern Mandarin Chinese, there is no gender distinction in pronouns in the spoken language: the pronoun 他 (tā) means he, she, or it.
Morphology
27. What are some shared cognates between English and this language? There are few cognates that are believed to be coincidences, e.g. the words for fee, totem, swallow sofa and typhoon. SOURCE: http://laowaichinese.net/cognate-coincidences.htm
28. What are some FALSE cognates between English and this language? I would not find a list of false cognates on the Internet, so I asked my friend, Jingsi, and my nephew’s roommate, Weichen. Neither could think of any.
29. Through your research what have you found are the biggest difficulties of speakers of this language learning English? Belonging to two different language families, English and Chinese have many significant differences.
Chinese does not have an alphabet but uses a logographic system for its written language. In logographic systems symbols represent the words themselves - words are not made up of various letters as in alphabetic systems. Because of this fundamental difference, Chinese learners may have great difficulty reading English texts and spelling words correctly.
Some English phonemes do not exist in Chinese; stress and intonation patterns are different. Unlike English, Chinese is a tone language. This means that it uses the pitch (highness or lowness) of a phoneme sound to distinguish word meaning.
In English, changes in pitch are used to emphasize or express emotion, not to give a different word meaning to the sound. English has more vowel sounds than Chinese, resulting in the faulty pronunciation of words like ship/sheep, it/eat, full/fool. Diphthongs such as in weigh, now or deer are often shortened to a single sound.
Chinese learners find it difficult to hear the difference between l and r, and so may mispronounce rake and rice as lake and lice. Southern Chinese speakers have a similar difficulty in distinguishing l and n.
A major problem is with the common final consonant in English. This feature is much less frequent in Chinese and results in learners either failing to produce the consonant or adding an extra vowel at the end of the word. For example, hill may be pronounced as if without the double ll but with a drawn out i, or as rhyming with killer.
30. If you have an early production ELL who this language is their L1, what would be the most important thing you will teach them in regards to the difference between their language and English?
Ideally, my ELL L1 Mandarin is about 5 years old and starting kindergarten. In this case, the focus would be on alphabet, letter sound relationship and phonemic awareness as the student learns new words. Most importantly, the student needs basic life and school vocabulary for survival. I wouldn’t worry about accent, as long as the child is understood. Key phrases like asking to use the bathroom, riding the bus, and eating lunch in the cafeteria could be translated using a text-to-speech language translator as long as the child doesn’t become completely dependent on using it.
An older student who may have an understanding of written Mandarin will face more challenges as she sorts out the differences in English written and spoken language. I would front load the ESOL lessons with necessary vocabulary, key nouns, important to get by in school. Although electronic translators are handy for giving directions or relaying an important piece of communication, I need to be careful that the student doesn’t become dependent on translating every word as they read.
Lessons on how to identify syllables and how pitch can change the meaning of a sentence based on where the emphasis is placed is helpful for both ESOL and non-ESOL students.
It is most important that the student understands that you care about their learning. A great teacher will use positive feedback as a motivation to help a discouraged student to keep working. This is especially important for speaking/listening lessons as well as reading/writing lessons.
Overall, I would use the most effective classroom strategies such as gestures, visual aids, technology when appropriate, and differentiated instruction to accommodate my ELL in the general classroom. For reading, I would teach the student how to use accompanying pictures and make sure they are reading “Just Right Books” for independent reading. Teaching songs can be a great way to break the ice and help the student transition from the silent period to speech emergent. Peer tutoring is still my favorite accommodation to help ESOL students blossom in the classroom.
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