Content
一． The atmosphere for second languages study
1. The background of English.
English is the main international language in the world. From 17th century, the influence of British Empire has been greater and greater. With the extend of the Great Britain and achieved its unique status English has been popular in the area of politics, economy and military. When we entered the 20th century, the status of the Great Britain has been weakened, but English has still been popular and accepted by more and more people. After the Second World War, America has been the superpower in virtue of its economy, politics and military. The voice of America absolutely has been the keynote of the world. Due to the history affairs and the reality, the status of English not only be consolidated, but also be enhanced.
2. The actuality of English learning.
English is an international language, or the world communication tool. According to an international organization, now the English learners are about 700 million to 800 million. Besides the native English speakers (about 300 million to 400 million), others are learning English in different degrees. Whether the data is true or not, we can be sure of one thing, the English learning is being calefactive, more and more Chinese being learning English.
3. The differences between first language learning and second language learning.
As we all know, from the day we come to the earth, we live in a certain language circumstance. Before we learn a certain language, we have been edified for a long time. A baby first called “mom”, which marks the start of his language learning, after that, he will express his ideas by the corresponding. At the age of 4 or 5, kids can easily use the language which they live in. That is called first language or mother tongue. For everyone, mother tongue is lifelong wealth.
Different people have different ways. For some, they may use their mother tongue as the only tool. For others, they should acknowledge more than one language, that is, besides mother tongue, another one is a must. For The second language learning, different country has different status. For example, the situation that people learn English as a second language in Canada and India is absolutely different. The former use English as a main tool to communicate, but the latter regard it only as the government use. It is not hard to see in China. In minority area, local people learn standard Chinese is the same case as a second language learning in India. All these cases are called Second Language Acquisition (SLA).
Second language acquisition is not intended to contrast with foreign language acquisition. SLA is used as a general term that embraces untutored acquisition and tutored acquisition. It is, however, an open question whether the way in which acquisition proceeds in these different situations is the same or different○1. SLA is not a uniform and predicate phenomenon. There is no single way in which learners acquire knowledge of a second language. SLA is the product of many factors pertaining to the learner on the one hand and the learning situation on the other…different learners in different situations learn a L2 in different ways○2.
One obvious difference between the young child and the adolescent or adult is the ability of the latter to comprehend language as a formal system. Older learners can learn about language by consciously studying linguistic rules. They can also apply these rules when they use the language. In contrast, younger children, while not totally lacking in meta-awareness, are not so prone to respond to language as form. For them language is a tool for expressing meaning.
二． Chinese learn English.
TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) in China has a history of roughly one hundred years. Short as it may be, compared with the history of FLT in western countries, it is full of twists and turns.
“Let the world know China, let China face the world”. After a long time of introspection, China actualized the open-up policy, which makes English be popular in China. The English learning trend has also promoted the education technology and other areas. The facility and means of English learning has changed. More and more foreign teachers are teaching in universities, even in middle schools. It is common to see that learners practice oral English and communicate with foreigners. After a long time of exploration in English learning, the reality that Chinese learn English in Chinese atmosphere has not changed, which lead Chinese learners to a barrier. As Professor Deni Xiong said, English learning is a battle, the enemy being your mother tongue, and the weapon is English.
2.1 Chinese thinking pattern disturbance in English learning.
The first language disturbance is natural in foreign language learning. The reason is that foreign language learning is to learn language knowledge, such as grammar, words, and its like, but not to contact and cognize the world again. This process was not start from zero, but to adjust the information system and thinking pattern on the basis of the first language learning. However, the knowledge system and thinking system which deposit in the first language environment are rooted, which will reject the new language toughly.
I think about a classmate in my junior school, who named Huang Shuren, being interested in English learning. One day, he made a self-introduction,“my name is Yellow Tree Man”. He checked the three words in the list, and put them together, which he thought could be his name. What an interesting experience, but it reflects a common phenomenon in English learning.
2.2 The sound disturbance in English learning.
When we start new language learning, there are some differences from the L1. At the beginning of English learning, you can not pronounce the long vowel or short vowel well, for example, mistakenly pronounce “by ship” to “by sheep”, which makes people confused, or mistakenly pronounce “he is thirty” to “he is dirty”. Perhaps you can not distinguish [r][l], so that falsely pronounce rice to lice, because you can not find [r] in your L1.
2.3 The grammar disturbance in English learning.
In grammar, you may have made mistakes like “I am student”, “it raining hard” or“he has went home”. You even felt confused when you made a sentence “although…but…” Or, you asked the teacher again and again that why not use “I against his plan”.
2.4 The words use disturbance in English learning.
You may have this experience that when you talked in English Corner, introducing “my English is low” or “if you are convenient, please come at three o＇clock”. All these sentences are thought correctly by yourself. Even in English writing, you mistakenly use “go buy thing” instead of “go shopping”, “write with English” not “write in English” and you considered all sentences are fluent without errors. They are accepted by the new learners, but not the local speakers.
2.5 Cultural disturbance in English learning.
In order to speak English correctly, it is necessary to have a good knowledge of culture in western countries. The foreigners will be pressed with the sensitive questions, such as “how much money have you earned here in China?”, “are you married”. All these embarrassing situations are from cultural barrier. We new learners should have a good knowledge of the culture, as an old saying goes “do as the Romans do”.
All of these problems are obvious and low level. At most time, it is unconscious when we are disturbed by the L1. According to a lecture by professor Zongyan Wang, he has investigated 30 writings by 20 students, in which he find about 150 disturbances by the L1, which deserves more consideration, because many of these writers have studied English more than 5 years, and some of them are translators or English teachers.
Facing the interference of mother tongue we should not be discouraged. Not do we be frustrated when we face challenges. Only the one who can make full understanding of disturbances in English learning can improve his English, mastering his oral English learning processes and being familiar with English thinking patterns. We can not seriously demand ourselves catch those English speakers.
三. Interlanguage and Chinglish.
3.1 A glance of interlanguage.
Like mastering other language, language learning is a progressive, deeply and perfection course. Either native language acquisition or foreign language learning both have to go through a process. In foreign language learning, at the beginning learners is in the effort toward the ultimate goal and advance, that is, master the target language. In this process we try our best to express our ideas in English, but finally we disappointedly find that ability is not equal to the ambition. In other words, our English neither get rid of the influence of the native language, nor with the characteristics of the target language. This phenomenon is called interlanguage by Selinker in the early 1972.
Interlanguage is constantly close to the target language by the native speakers, which is in essence of dynamic change process. Learners always actively enrich their knowledge of foreign languages system and, according to their own understanding to judge, repeatedly discarding and fixing. Interlanguage obeys certain rules and develops gradually, so it has its own principle. Foreign scholars have a point on interlanguage research: in a certain language environment, the same level learners’ approximate system is roughly the same. Learners alone differ in thousands ways, personal cognitive method and strategy also often vary widely, thus it has always hard been principled. Due to the different language environment, now there are new types of English, such as Hinglish, Japglish, Frenglish, Spanglish, which is with great space from pure English.
3.2 The summarization of Chinglish.
Chinglish is from two words “Chinese” and “English” clipping them together. We can not find the word in a dictionary, but it is not strange for us. From a foreign teacher, “Chinglish”has two meanings. One is that the inherent Chinese culture and ideology of generation has produced special Chinese political terms, the popular view and words allusions, for example, “both red and expert”, “a three-merit student”, “one nation and two system”, “cross-street relations”, ect. We are very familiar with these sentences. Once we put them into English symbols, foreigners are often feeling puzzling and elusive. The second is that Chinese students use English to express their ideas, as the influence of the native language and the way of thinking, consciously or not, Chinglish being produced in oral and written on the wrong English usage.
Domestic scholars have borrowed the formulation of professor Chuangui Ge, who is a master in the English field and professored in Fudan university, studying internal problem of English expression. To define “Chinese English” and “China English”, they pointed: “China English” is based on Standard English as the core, expressing Chinese unique social culture, not being subjected to interference with the native language. By transliteration or semantic regeneration, vocabulary, sentence or text with Chinese characteristics has been produced. “Chinese English” is that in China, due to the interference of mother tongue, users cover the Chinese rules and habits in English learning, which produced nonstandard and deformity English.
It is hard to avoid the first kind between two languages with great differences in couture. However in oral English, we easily made a “Chinese English” mistake, which now is vividly explained by Chinglish.
3.3 The form of Chinglish.
More and more Chinese learn English, more and more Chinglish being produced. It is necessary to say some regards when Chinese students meet English teachers. “Have you had your breakfast?” “Where are you going?” These words sound right, but they made English speakers puzzled and embarrassed, because of English greeting habits. Another example, I heard a student make a phone call to a foreign teacher: “hello, I am Li.., who are you? I want to meet Jackson.” These are not fit with American phone habits. Some typical title such as “teacher Chan” makes English speakers uncomfortable. The oral Chinglish is just a speaking habit.
Chinglish is more popular in written English. Now, the written English is much stricter than before, but the Chinglish in written English is particularly outstanding. There are three kinds of Chinglish, and one is English speaking on Chinese. Chinese students have a tendency that when they are speaking Chinese, they translate Chinese into English, based on Chinese sentence pattern. The process of translation process is different from person to person; if people made such sentences, no doubt, have went through the process. The next step is translation, being dead move and stack, putting every English word into the Chinese pattern. At last, here comes English with Chinese character. There are some examples:
1) My English base is very poor and composition is always my weakness. I must make use of a strong measure to raise my English level all round. (我的以英语基础很差，写作一直是我的薄弱环节。我必须采取强化措施提升我的英语水平。)
2) Reading made me learn a lot of new words. (阅读使我学到了很多新的单词。)
3) The numbers of vocabularies I have mastered have enlarged―I have studied more than five thousand vocabularies. (我掌握的词汇量大了，我已经学会了5000多个单词了。)
Another kind is applying arbitrarily. Students completely depend on literal Chinese definition, ignoring the part-of-speech connotation, confusedly matching. There are some examples:
1) Except for studying the textbook, I also insist on reading “China Daily”. (除了学习课本的知识，我还坚持阅读《中国日报》)
2) This year my listening skills have made much progress. (今年我在听力技巧上取得了很大的进步。)
3) I like the dictionary, but its price is expensive. (我喜欢这本词典，但是它的价格太贵了。)
4) Reference books are reference books only; they can’t instead of our studying. (参考书知识参考书而已，它们不能代替我们的学习。)
The last kind is coining words. This type is almost the same with the first one, but more difficult to understand. For example:
1) Somebody just knows to copy answers, because they are lazy.
2) I suggest the teacher had better help us win much more chances to have the oral comprehension.
After surveying the appeal of a few examples, we can see that it took with different types of grammar mistakes obviously distinct from other language grammar. There are many this kind of sentences, only from the grammar and the structure, even can’t pick out any errors. The meaning of these sentences will make the foreign teachers confused, however our Chinese will understand at the first glance. This seems neither fish nor fowl articles, sometimes reading it gives a person a kind of very fluent impression, however, it often make people do not know how to correct. For ordinary grammar mistakes, once pointed out that students will completely correct, but for these kinds, the students will often be stubborn.
3.4 The cause of Chinglish.
Firstly, we can view this part in linguistics. Mother-tongue disturbance is the most important problem. It is a tendency that learners bring mother-tongue habits into foreign language learning process. For those people who get used to native idea basis doing a "literal translation type" writing, tend to do equivalent exchange in the words and phrases level, or in speech and sentence level do mechanical instead. It'll be easier to put different language structure of the words to the native structure mode. They subjectively want to faithfully combine the knowledge of foreign languages with mother tongue, but only to do just the opposite, make sentences often neither fish nor fowl.
Secondly, some people totally rely on Chinese meaning when they learn English, just as the examples above. That is what we called the a slight error at the onset means a large mistake at the end.
For those coining words, the problem is more. Only through patience consideration, can we realize the meaning, however, for those who often correct the writing, these sentences are not new.
3.4 How to correct Chinglish.
Chinglish is a problem of language, fluently appearing in the process of English learning. The problem is we should realize clearly it is a barrier in deepening English study.
1). Teachers in teaching process to help guide students with great enthusiasm to overcome the obstacles of the native language interference. In the course of study, the teacher will try to create an English atmosphere, will only as a necessary Chinese assistant method. Even in use when teaching Chinese, but also to the proper. In order to make students understand the interference of mother tongue, when necessary, the teacher pay attentions to introducing Chinese is compared, and deepen the students' impression. For some too dependent on Chinese habit of the students, also don't have asked them to thinking in English, because use English thinking is not short time can exercise. In this case, had better have pointed to introduce students to the basic knowledge of translation, and to lead them to learn to consciously thinking. In addition, our textbook also must meet the specific conditions of the local students, appropriate to add some translation skills and the theory of knowledge. For English teachers should also pay attention to, do not emphasize the students in writing, pay attention to the things were, as far as possible to add some overcome Chinglish content.
2). In the learning process, must pay attention to continuously consolidate and flexible use their learned knowledge of the language. In learning words don't limited to the meaning of the dictionary, but also find out the deep meaning of each word. This requires the students can't remember the words alone, learn words from the sentences, and sentence from the article. The more words or learning, confusion of things is more also. In English learning process, use more English dictionary, less with Chinese English dictionary, so that is not only beneficial to the learners to master the exact meaning, and thus they correct use of words. Practice has proved that use the dictionary is not only beneficial to the learners to master the exact meaning, and thus they enhancement language sense.
3). The learners should flexibly apply the language knowledge. Many people complained about their vocabulary. If we just pursue the new and complicated words, we shall forget the common words. For example, there is a student write some words on his diary: The words he said made me feel surprised and, as a result, I asked what his meaning is when he said I was “suibian”. The sentence is too long and hard to understand. If we change them into: his remarks surprised me, so I asked what he meant by “suibian”, that could be better. In this sentence, we can’t find proper word to express “suibian”, but “surprise” and “mean” has been learned more than once. The problem is that the students has been constraint by the Chinese meaning of the words, and can’t surmount the Chinese thought pattern. However, the process of English learning is not processes of translation, only to cultivate our English thought pattern, can we flexibly use the tool.
四．The process of interlanguage construction.
1. Language transfer (some, but certainly not all, items, rules and subsystems of a learner’s interlanguage may be transferred from the first language)
2. Transfer of training (some interlanguage elements may derive from the way in which the learners were taught).
3. Strategies of second language learning (‘an identifiable approach by the learner to the material to be learned’)
4. Strategies of second language communication (‘an identifiable approach by the learner to communication with native speakers of the TL’).
5. Overgeneralization of the target language material (some interlanguage elements are the result of a ‘clear overgeneralization’ of target language rules and semantic features).
五．How to learn spoken English.
The Chinese students have studied the English language for approximately ten years before arriving at the university to study English., but most of these students cannot speak English correctly or fluently.
In my opinion, there are several obstacles that have cause this to happen. “The main obstacle is fear! Another obstacle is the habit of mentally translating from Chinese to English and then to convert these thoughts into spoken words and sentences. Many of these difficulties are caused by the way Chinese people study and learn the English Language.”
1) Learning to speak as a child learns to speak. When we learn a second language we need to remember how we learned our native language. We need to learn to speak as a child learns to speak. Learning to understand and speak a language is one of the first skills a child develops. How does a child learn the language? They listen for a time and then they try to repeat the word. Parents give great praise for the smallest efforts and slightest improvement. Therefore, the child develops courage and is excited about learning. It is a long times before they know anything about grammar, spelling or formal sentence structure. There ,whole focus is on speaking and communicating the word they want to say.
2) “Language teachers should avoid criticism and be very encouraging and generous with praise.”
Criticism or pointing out faults too often causes the student to be apprehensive and they lose self-confidence and develop fear of speaking. The best way to motivate a student is my using praise
3) The most important aspect of speaking is having good self-esteem. Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself. When most Chinese people are asked how their English is or they are told their English is very good , they immediately respond by saying, “Oh my English is very poor. If you say this to yourself often enough you will believe it. When someone compliments you, just say thank you .
I have listed below ten secrets to learn English more successfully. The list comes from the book “10 Secrets To Speaking English” by Dale H Christensen. I use this book in teaching English at TongJi University. The quotes and information come from this book with permission from the author: 1. Self-Esteem; 2. Teach Others; 3. Sing Songs; 4. Talk to the TV and Radio; 5. Read Aloud and Read a Lot; 6. Call Others on the Telephone; 7. Group Participation; 8. Interpret For Others; 9. Memorize New Words And Phrases; 10. Read, Write and Memorize Poetry. And also writing in a personal journal daily . I have found this to be one of the most effective ways to learn English. When writing you should read out loud what you are writing. This way you hear yourself pronoun word.