How Mandarin affects the English Acquisition：A Case Study of an ELL

Linwei Xiang

【Abstract】The thesis is a case study based on an observation of a third-grade ELLs performance. The methodology including recording， quantifying， and analyzing her language use in the settings inside and outside classroom.

【Key words】ELL; Observation; Linguistics; L1; L2; English Acquisition

【作者簡介】向琳煒（1993，12-），女，漢族，合肥人，靈客貫通國際教育咨詢（北京）有限責任公司，英語教師，碩士研究生，研究方向：語言教育。

Ⅰ.Introduction

The case study is based on an observation in a public school in New York City， which is a bilingual elementary school with dual-language class （Mandarin/Spanish and English）. The majority of students preferred English inside and outside the classroom. My observation took place in the third grade Mandarin and English class.

I chose to focus on studying the second language acquisition of a student whom I refer to as “student A” in this article. Student A was an emergent bilingual who has been living in the United States since she was 6 years old. When I conducted the case study， she was 10 years old， enrolled in the 3rd grade of the dual-language program in the public school， had been immersed in the English language environment for 4 years. Unlike her ELL peers who were mostly born in America， Student A was the only one that had not passed the NYSESLAT （New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test）. Student A， at the time， preferred English as her social language in the school. Meanwhile， her L1， Mandarin， also affected her L2 acquisition. According to Krashen and Terrells stages of second language acquisition， the student was experiencing the Beginning Fluency stage.

Ⅱ.Documentation of diagnosis

During my observation， I used audio devices to record the ELLs conversations with her peers， her teachers， and her parent， inside and outside the classroom.

The analysis was based on the data gathered from this observation. With the review of the ELLs language use in L2， I compare the ELLs L1（Mandarin） and L2 （English）， trying to figure out what impact L2 has on L1， making assumptions from these data.

Ⅲ. Analysis of Diagnosis

Phonological aspect

Stress the last syllable

Every Chinese syllable is presented by a Chinese character. Therefore， unstressed syllable is rare in Mandarin. Student A kept the pronouncing habit， tended to stress the last syllable. For example， when she said “time”， she pronounced /taimu/ instead of /taim/; when she said “achievement”， she also stressed the last syllable， pronounced /??t?ivm?nt?/.

Tenseness and length of vowel

In English vocabulary， varied lengths and tenseness of vowels refer to different words; while in Chinese vocabulary， the meaning of words wont change with the length and tenseness of the vowel.

Student A read the letter cluster “oo” as lax vowel in every situation. When she said， “do you want a cookie/k?ki/？” she pronounced “cookie” as /k?：ki/. The same thing happened in her writing. For example， when she was asked to spell out “copybook” in a dictation， she wrote “copybok.”

Ⅳ.Consonant clusters

When Student A was reading “Spring Festival is my favorite holiday”， I noticed that she substituted /p/ of / spr??/ with /b/ and omitted /s/ of /?f?st?v?l/. In the observation， I recorded Student A repeatedly making mistakes on consonant clusters， especially the co mbination like /ks/， /st/， /sp/; but she never made omission or substitution on combination like /ts/， /tr/， /dr/， and /pl/.

Morphological aspect

Article

In the English language， definite article “the” refers to specific objects; indefinite articles “a” and “an” refers to general objects. Although there are similar notion in the Chinese language—“一個” similar to “a”， and “這個” similar to “the.” There is no strict grammar for the articles in daily usage. Student A found it difficult to use articles appropriately in speaking and constantly omitted articles in her sentences.

Semantic aspect

Tense

Mandarin users tend to use adverbial of time instead of tenses to distinguish time differences. When it came to English， Student A easily confused the tenses. One example was that when I asked her： “what did you eat yesterday？” she said， “I eat fried rice.” Student A also shown a confusion of tenses in writing. Once she wrote about her first day in the school year， which should be stated in the past tense， she wrote “in the school I see my friends”.

Conclusion & implication

The study identified 5 linguistic features existing in Student As L2 acquisition. The case study and analysis yielded the following conclusions.

Student As L1 had positive and negative influences on her L2 acquisition. The characteristic of her hometown dialect led to some of her pronunciation habit， such as stressing the last syllabus and substitution in consonant clusters.

Student As L1 could also facilitate her L2 learning. The word order and the lexical categories of Mandarin and English are highly comparable. In the observation， Student A never made mistake about word order， and she can distinguish the lexical categories. Thus， the similarities between the two languages helped Student As L2 acquisition.

References：

[1]Finegan， E. Language： Its structure and use[J]. Cengage Learning， 2014.

[2]Krashen， S. D.， & Terrell， T. D. The natural approach： Language acquisition in the classroom[J].1983.

[3]Krashen， S. D. The input hypothesis： Issues and implications[J]. Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd，1985.