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Diana Mora
Education 403
May 1, 2017
Abstract
During my time observing in a charter high school in an urban setting, I was able to
observe an 11th grade Mandarin Chinese class. I was able to recognize the lack of knowledge in
how to sentence build. Students struggle to make their own sentences is possibly due to the fact
that Ms. Lin has pulled these students away from learning the actual Mandarin Chinese language
and to only teach them about the cultural aspect. I decided to work with five of her students in
order to help them understand sentence building with only using Chinese characters. I had
devised a plan in order to help students where each element of a sentence (verbs, nouns,
pronouns, adverbs, etc) goes in a sentence. I had hoped that the whole group would understand
how to sentence build on their own after our sessions together. However, only three out of five
students were able to understand how sentence build on their own. The other two students still
pinpoint where students had struggled most, I hope that for at least some students, this plan
would be able to help them sentence build with only using Chinese characters in their future
Introduction
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While observing the 11th grade introductory Mandarin Chinese class, I noticed that most
students had some difficulties in one particular area. Even though I was not able to help students
in reteaching the basic words in the Chinese language but I was able to help them in another way
in order to understand how to connect different words together in order to make complete
sentences. I was able to observe my cooperating teachers 11th grade Mandarin Chinese class.
During the class periods, I noticed that she assigns students mini group projects of the cultural
factor of the class, which moves students away from receiving lessons on how to learn the
language. These mini group projects consist in students making a PowerPoint or a poster about a
cultural factor. These mini group projects are all written in English, which does not allow
students to practice writing in characters and sentence structure. Although students can identify
vocabulary with the help of pinyin (the pronunciation of words), pinyin is not the official Chinese
writing system. Most students are now used to reading and writing in pinyin.
In this study, I hope to help students with showing them how to use the basic Chinese
sentence structure. Mandarin Chinese is one of the most difficult languages to learn in the world;
the language has an extensive number of characters that one must learn in order to be completely
fluent in the language. When teaching Mandarin Chinese in schools, it is always recommended
to allow students to get used to looking at the Chinese characters. It is also recommended for
teachers to allow students learn the pinyin while learning the language in order for students to
understand each characters pronunciation. Teachers also allow students to use pinyin in their
writing to guide them and help them complete assignments, since writing characters can be
challenging. I also hope to help students understand the importance of practicing their sentence
structure skills using only Chinese characters. Pinyin is only the training wheels in learning the
Chinese language. Both character writing and sentence structure work hand in hand with each
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other in order to successfully write fluently in Chinese. With this study, I hope to answer my
focus question: How can I improve students abilities with sentence structure in Mandarin
Chinese?
The problem I noticed was the lack of knowledge of the material. Even though this is a
first year Chinese class, they are behind in where they should be at in their second semester of
Chinese. This was caused by not receiving well developed lessons that focused on the actual
language. Another cause is involving students in doing more cultural mini projects than learning
to be literate in the actual language. These cultural mini projects are all written in English, which
does not allow students to practice reading and writing the Chinese language. Learning a new
language is not easy, especially if it is in a different writing system than English natives are used
to. By learning another language that has a different structural system and being able to use it
fluently can make learning languages with similar syntax easier to learn. There are three groups
of researchers Ronald Carter & Michael Mccarthy, Susan M. Gass & Jacquelyn Schachte, and
Jack C. Richards & Theodore S. Rodgers have studies on teaching syntax structure and why it
would be difficult for students to understand and learn syntax structure of another language.
Learning a language can become more difficult as one gets older. In order to teach syntax
to older students, we need to come up with different more simpler strategies. However, there is a
main reason why students fail understand how to sentence structure works in a different
language. Students tend to stay in their first language sentence structure because they are used to
it. This would cause students go out of their comfort zone in order to learn a new language.
Students who are native English speakers will have trouble learning a language such as Japanese,
that has a completely different structural system. Learning a language that has their own set of
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grammar rules can become confusing to most students. Some students adapt faster to the new
grammar rules than other students, which can also cause students to not comprehend the
grammar rules as quickly as they are expected to learn them during their time at school (Gass
When teaching syntax, the organization of vocabulary words and sentence structure are
essential because they work together in order to understand the language. A useful technique
shown to help students understand sentence structure is using paired associations. These paired
associations are words that pair together in a sentence in order to associate a native word that the
student already knows to the unknown word in the foreign language. This technique works well
when translating because it shows students how the words in their native language words are
placed in the order of the foreign language sentence structure. This technique is to help students
move away from their native language sentence structure in order to understand the foreign
Students can struggle in learning a new language, whether it would be in the same writing
system as their native language or not. Researchers Richards and Rogers found that students
have a difficult time in learning a new language due to learning style preferences, affective
factors, motivation, and learning strategies. All students have different learning style preferences.
Some students like to learn in groups and others like to learn alone. Some students are visual
learners, other are lectures, and etc. Teachers have to accommodate to the students learning
preference. Students also have difficulties learning a new language due to affective factors.
These affective factors are the emotions students go through when learning a new language such
as: anxiety, shyness, etc. Motivation plays a huge factor when learning a new language. Students
need to be motivated or want to learn a new language. Motivation is what gives one the
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dedication, patience, and determination to learn a new language. Lastly, learning strategies can
influence how a student learns a new language. Each student has their own learning strategies in
how they learn a new topic, this includes how students: plan, manage and evaluate their learning.
Students need to be able to identify what are their strengths and what needs improvement in their
learning. All these elements need to work together in order for a student to learn the syntax
Purpose: The research question focuses on how can I improve students abilities to
sentence build in Chinese. The purpose of this research is to find if students can use a basic
Chinese sentence structure in order to build their own sentences while using only Chinese
characters.
Participants: In order to put my plan into action, I observed a 11th grade Mandarin
Chinese class at an bilingual school in an urban setting. This class included 24 students, most of
them whom are bilingual students. The class was mostly composed of racial minorities with
African-American and Hispanic students. This class meets everyday from Monday through
Procedures: After observing the class for a couple of times, I proposed to the teacher to
let me work with a group of students who needed help with sentence structure. I discussed with
with the teacher about which students need a bit more help in understanding how Chinese
grammar sentence structure worked. I was given the opportunity to work with five students, all
with a Spanish speaking background. We would sit together in a group once a week for about 45
minutes, after the teacher had given them a set of vocabulary words to use in their sentences.
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I know I cannot change the way the teacher teaches the class but I can help students with
understanding how to sentence build. By starting with sentence structure and showing students
where verbs, nouns, adverbs, adjective, and location words go in a sentence. I plan to take three
lessons that they learned and use those as my examples help them understand sentence structure.
I will also encourage students to write only in Chinese characters in order to get them used to
writing in the official Chinese writing, moving them little by little away from the pinyin.
I first needed to see what each student was struggling with specifically. I had each student
write one sentence about taking the train home. Once each student was done writing, I took a
look at each students sentence. They all had one common error in their sentences and that error
was location word placement. Once I knew what the common error was, I was then able to show
the group how a correct sentence is built. I then gave each student a diagram of a basic Chinese
sentence structure. I chose three different lessons that they had already learned: colors,
transportation, and numbers, in order to use them as examples on how to use the diagram. I
explained to the group that this sentence structure format is used for most sentences in the
Chinese language and that they needed to write their sentences in Chinese characters only. Once
I gave them samples sentences, I then translated the sentence word by word in order to show
them where each English word is placed in the Chinese sentence format. This was important
because students will see where the placement of the English words changed after being
translated from Chinese back into English. After each session, I would ask the group to write a
sentence or two in Chinese characters on their own without using the sentence structure diagram.
At the end of the session, I asked them what part still confuses them and what part did
they believe they understood after using the diagram. I also asked if they would continue using
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the sentence structure diagram for their future assignments. Some students found that they
understood it a bit more than when they first started working with me and others still felt
confused about their location word placement. I hope that using the diagram would help them
practice how to build their own sentences in their assignments and quizzes (without the help of
using pinyin).
Assessment Results
Over the course of working with my group of students, I asked them if they felt that by
using the basic Chinese sentence structure was helpful in building sentences on their own in
Chinese. Students were asked to build their own sentences after every session without looking at
their practice notes that was done as a group. Brandon explained that this sentence structure
strategy did help him understand which words go where but he is not able to write all the words
in Chinese sentences due to not being able to remember how to write them. Julia explained that
the sentence structure was still confusing, mostly since she could not remember how to write
many of the words in Chinese characters. Three out of five students felt comfortable enough in
using the basic sentence structure and are able to write mostly with Chinese characters. While the
other two students still struggle with understanding how to use this structure in different
sentences, since their mind is still set on their English knowledge of sentence structure.
Next Steps
Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to continue to work with these students and
help them completely understand how to sentence build on their own. However, if I had the
opportunity to continue working these students, I would use more examples of previous lessons
in order to have them better understand sentence structure. Although most of my group of
students started to understand the concept of the Chinese sentence structure, I would have liked
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to continue having them practice on how to do it on their own so they would feel comfortable
enough to do it without the guidance of someone sitting there with them. I was able to give them
a sentence structure diagram as a template on sentence building for their future classes. I would
have liked to see them be able to build their own sentences on their own in a quiz to see if they
Conclusion
Overall, I believe that I presented the group with a basic sentence structure diagram in
order to help them understand the difference between the English sentence structure and the
Chinese sentence structure. I was also able to demonstrate to the group how to use the diagrams
by using three previous lessons that they have already learned. After asking the group if the
diagram was useful and if they would use it in the future, three out of five students said it was
helpful and it made it easier to understand how to build their own sentences. Three out of five
students also said they would use the diagram in their future classes and continue practicing with
it until they were able to be fluent with it. Although I did not have enough time to help the other
two students fully comprehend the Chinese sentence structure, I am pleased that my plan was
able to help at least three students in my group. I believe that in the future, I will be able to use
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References
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