THE MANDARIN ORAL TEST FOR BEGINNERS Part I (2014)

 THE MANDARIN ORAL TEST FOR BEGINNERS Part I (2014)

 LOI Hing Kee 

Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Institute of Marine Engineering Technology (UniKL MIMET) 

hkloi@unikl.edu.my 

 

ABSTRACT 

Conventional oral test for Mandarin Language subjects is a very formal, where the students are tested one by one and have no guide during the test. It was found that they failed the test very badly and were very scared during the test, they also had difficulties in preparing the test. Hence, conventional oral test was changed to a new format which included the mastery learning, cooperative learning and self-paced learning. The teaching and learning of Mandarin Phonetic System was also modified and improved to ease the students’ difficulties in mastering it. Listening Test was used to let students recognize and use the Chinese Characters. Students can master language skills with less difficulties and more fun now. 

 

KEYWORDS 

Oral Exam, Listening Test, mastery learning, cooperative learning, self-paced learning 

 

INTRODUCTION 

Mandarin language is thought as a foreign language subject in Universiti Kuala Lumpur Malaysian Institute of Marine Engineering Technology (UniKL MIMET). Students need to complete two Mandarin language subjects (Mandarin 1 & 2), for two hours per week. Each course last for one semester or 14 weeks. Each semester, the assessment methods consist of:  

Coursework                                                                                           40% 

Oral test： 1st spoken exam 10% plus 1st Listening test 5% 

2nd spoken exam 10% plus 2nd Listening test 5%                    30% 

Written test (a summative test at the end of the semester)                        30% 

                            Total 100% 

Mandarin subjects are university compulsory subjects and have no final examinations. 

 

Mandarin is entirely different language as compared to English and Malay. Students face great problem in differentiating the four different tones. Some even cannot follow and repeat correctly. During oral test, it was found that the conventional oral test was not suitable for the beginners. This article explains the methods and the means endeavored to improve the oral test. 

 

THE CONVENTIONAL ORAL TEST 

According to the Lesson and Assessment Plan, students would had oral test this morning. Hayati was the first one to be tested, but she said that she was not ready yet, and beg to postpone the test. A month ago, each student had been given the test materials, the contents consist of Chinese characters, words, phrases, sentences, reading the texts, questions and answers, phonetic exercises, singing and reading the lyrics etc. The lecturer had taught and discussed the test materials several times in class, thus the students were expected to get ready accordingly.  

 

The lecturer told Hayati that she would be tested when she was ready, she agreed. Although she is a university student and has gone through so many tests, when facing the test, she was very scared and trembling with fear. After the lecturer tested for the first two items, she could no longer proceed with the test and left the examination room. Before leaving, she expressed her sincere apology and bowed to the lecturer. Even these two items, although she had prepared, but mostly failed. Later, the lecturer hold a conversation with Hayati. She said that she spent a lot of time in preparing. The lecturer believed in her confession, because she is a hardworking students, but still could not prepared nicely. No wonder she was afraid and trembling! The lecturer found out that the rest of the class had the same problem.  

 

NEW APPROACH IN ORAL TEST 

As a result, the conventional Oral Test was changed to a new strategy, which is by combining the mastery learning1and cooperative learning together, and was used in this test. Firstly, the test was divided into two parts -- individual test and group test. Instead of testing the whole paper, the lecturer separated the oral test into units or items, and test item by item. Before the test, the students were taught2 several times, and were also encouraged them to use cooperative learning after class. Students prefer this approach of learning. Even individual test, students also prefer to learn in group but to be tested individually. Students preferred to do the test in a group of three to five members to avoid nervousness and fear, some group even asked to be tested first. This method has inspired their enthusiasm, and also quicken the test but their pronunciation is still very inaccurate. 

 

MANDARIN PHONETIC SYSTEM (HANYU PINYIN汉语拼音Hànyǔ Pīnyīn) 

Hanyu Pinyin3 (English is Pinyin) is the lesson that the students must learn. Although they had learnt, but still could not master them accurately, not to mention the tones4, hence they could not pronounce the Chinese character correctly. The phonetic systems of English, Malay and the Pinyin although have quite a lot are the same, but they do not much help. Some students even have their own invention of phonetic systems, which make matters worse! Take simple finals a o e i u ü as an example, they often mixed the English and Malay pronunciation together and use the tone5 arbitrarily. Some even could not pronounce. Their mother tongue also using spelling system, they could not pronounce, maybe the mother tongue is easy for them to learn, so they do not emphasized in pronunciation and spelling. The textbook which is specially written by all UniKL full-time Mandarin Lecturers according to the approved syllabus, also provided with an audio CD which include almost all the texts in the textbooks, but it did not work, because the speaker speaks in normal speed which is too fast for the beginners, student could not catch up. They never learn Mandarin before, they feel weird and wonder with the phonetic tones that discern shape or character form（形xíng）, sound（音yīn）and meaning（义yì）. For example mā妈(mother), má麻(hemp), mǎ马(horse), mà骂(scold), ma 吗(question tag), have same spelling ma, but different in tones cause to different in character form， sound and meaning. In the textbooks, almost every characters are transcribed into Pinyin in order to help students to pronounced characters correctly. These induced the students tend to use Pinyin to learn Mandarin and ignore the Chinese Character. However, many students still could not master the tones, some of them even could not follow what the lecturer pronounced. It is after all a foreign language for the beginner，everything is new to them. 

 

Let the students to articulate the Chinese characters in correct tones and speech correct mandarin are the lecturer’s greatest challenge. So, the lecturer changed the method of teaching and learning the four tones, by adding hand gestures to indicate the tones, and asked the students to follow suit. It was observed that they easily recognized and differentiated the tunes in this way, and can pronounce more accurately. During the oral test, whole group pronounced the character using same tone, same hand gesture, it look nice and beautiful. 

In this way, the students had strengthened their confidence, and test materials also increased, that also improved the quality of oral test. However, once students read or speak faster, the pronunciation and the tone will not be accurate. The lecturer encouraged them to slow down, accelerate slowly when they had mastered it. They did it with good results! 

 

DISADVANTAGES IN GROUP TEST 

Students whom were tested together in a group of three to five, inevitably one or two of them did not cooperate. For example some may intentionally lower the sound volume so that the lecturer cannot find out his or her mistake, or read a bit slow in order to keep up with the other students. But the magic goes, the road climbs, during the group test, when the lecturer found out one or two members who did not pronounce the character correctly, or not in pace with the other members, or tones gesture wrong, the whole group was asked to go back to learn and practice again. Usually the second try will be better. This way also helped in preventing them from deceiving themselves or others.