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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 betweenstudents’ tonal errors in classroom interaction and in reading sentences aloud; (b) the typesof teachers’ error treatments; (c) the relationship between students’ tonal errors and theirperspectives on error corrections; (d) the relationship between teachers’ error corrections inclassrooms and their perspectives on tonal errors and corrective feedback. The data sourcesincluded audio recordings of 15 hours of classroom visits to 5 teachers’ first-year classes, 2hours 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 causesvariations in tonal error patterns. Students who preferred self-correction made fewer tonalerrors inthe reading aloud tests. Among all linguistic explanations, describing the pitch contourof tones was the least preferred error treatment strategy for the teachers and students. Simplyasking students to repeat teachers’ model of appropriate tones without any additional guidanceconstituted the least effective but most frequently used corrective strategy. The teachers alsooften ignored tonal errors and expected students to overcome their problems by memorizingChinese tones. In agreement with the Vygotskyan perspective that perceives the nature of errorcorrection as a collaborative activity, the findings show that successful error corrections requireteachers and students to co-construct the linguistic knowledge and transition from externalcorrective interaction to students’ self-assistance. Based on these findings, it suggested howteachers can strategically correct tonal errors. |
