Help your students decode Mandarin Chinese pinyin and tackle the tougher sounds with explicit instructions. In this session a native Chinese speaker and college professor, along with an experienced American Chinese teacher will guide you to help your students to overcome the challenges of Mandarin Chinese pronunciation.

1. Pronunciation workshop: Teaching tones & pinyin Methods that built up student’s confidence 让学生学习有成就感！ AubreyKuanRoderick 管栗云 Associate Faculty of Chinese, Mira Costa College Rachel Meyer 梅洁如 Owner/Director, ABC Language School

2. Americans speaking Chinese Image if the two Americans in the video took your Chinese classes for 2 years, how would you feel? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnxDEX30Znk

4. Pronunciation IS important

6. Teaching pinyin Teaching Initials子音 No need to waste much time on the intuitive sounds: b similar to 'b' in the English 'boat' p similar to 'p' in the English 'top' m same as 'm' in the English 'mat' f same as 'f' in the English 'fat' d similar to 'd' in the English 'down' t similar to 't' in the English 'top' - n similar to 'n' in the English 'name' l similar to 'l' in the English 'look' g similar to 'g' in the English 'go' k similar to 'k' in the English 'kiss' h similar to 'h' in the English 'hope' - with a slight rasp as in 'loch' j similar to 'j' in the English 'jeep' - sh similar to 'sh' in the English 'ship's similar to 's' in the English 'see' ch similar to 'ch' in the English 'cheap'

7. Non-intuitive pinyin sounds q similar to 'ch' in the English 'cheap' - tongue is positioned below lower teeth x similar to 'sh' in the English 'sheep' - tongue is positioned below lower teeth zh similar to 'j' in the English 'jam' r similar to 'z' in the English 'azure' z same as 'ds' in the English 'woods' c similar to 'ts' in the English ‘cats'

8. Teaching finals母音 (y)i similar to 'ee' in the English 'bee' (w)u similar to 'oo' in the English 'room' yu purse your lips and position the tongue high and forwards a similar to 'ah' in the English 'Ah-hah!' (w)o similar to 'or' in the English 'bore' e similar to 'er' in the English 'hers' (y)e similar to the English 'Yay!' ai similar to the English 'eye' ei similar to 'ei' in the English 'weigh' ao similar to 'au' in the English 'sauerkraut' ou similar to 'ou' in the English 'dough' an similar to 'an' in the English 'fan' en similar to 'un' in the English 'under' ang a Mandarin 'a' followed by the 'ng' sound like in the English 'sing' eng a Mandarin 'e' followed by the 'ng' sound like in the English 'sing' er a Mandarin 'e' with the tongue curled back

9. How to teach the difficult sounds umlauted ‘u’: “think of Kermit the Frog” Retroflexive sounds (zh, ch, sh) – using mirror How to teach the initial ‘c’: like “cats” or “t + S” How to teach the initial ‘r’ – your thoughts?? How to the teach longer finals: iao, iang, uang, etc Zi, si, ci – using “uh”

10. Stages of correcting: Avoiding frustration First Step: Don’t over-correct. Use humor. Correct one thing at a time. Emphasize modeling. Second Step: Start correcting both tone and pronunciation. Correct all common errors. Third Step: Anything and everything.

11. Teaching activities Combine teaching culture and pinyin Famous Cities/People in China Chinese festivals and legends Use pinyin cards to play games on: Initial and final sounds 4 tones Teach Chinese songs using familiar tunes “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” “Two tigers” Tongue twisters can break the ice Use simple one and avoid poetry initially

12. Online resources BBC Chinese focusing on tones: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/games/tones.shtml Pinyin Practice on all levels: http://pinyinpractice.com/wangzhi/ Voice and image recording: http://voicethread.com/#home Voice recording only: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

13. What researchers say Problem: Pinyin spelling affects a learner’s ability to replicate the sounds accurately. Solution: Assign students audio homework so they can relate the native pronunciation with the pinyin spelling Fact: Visual speech provides significant benefit for learners to improve their pronunciation. Advice: Encourage students to watch your mouth and imitate. Encourage use of mirror. Problem: Learners often cannot integrate accurate tones into the natural cadence of Mandarin speech. Solution: Have students memorize and replicate dialogues, skits/ plays, stories and other content in full form to capture natural cadence of tones in speech.

14. The free-floater & the tone robot How to help the Free Floater: Assess if the student is really memorizing tones Assign more audio work Encourage student to memorize passages How to help the Tone Robot: Have student listen to audio of unfamiliar material before looking at vocab list & tones Encourage student to spend time listening to Mandarin TV or online content to get a better feel for cadence

16. Don’t be hard on yourself – listen as much as you can to audio and you will get the hang of it.

17. Download extra audio from sites like Chinesepod.com and you will get more exposure.

19. How do you handle teaching the difficult points of pronunciation?

20. Have your students ever come to you frustrated?