Original Research
Reframing the ‘Strange’ as ‘Familiar’ – Teaching Mandarin Chinese Tones to Speakers of Non-Tonal Languages
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A major challenge of learning Mandarin Chinese is mastering lexical tones. Conventional methods of teaching Mandarin tones assume that, for speakers of non-tonal languages, lexical tones are a ‘strange’ concept. Our small-scale pilot study drew on pedagogical theories of cross-linguistic transfer (CLT) to frame lexical tones as ‘familiar’ by modelling Mandarin pitch contours on English intonation patterns. We compared an experimental group with a control group, within a first-semester university Chinese language course. All participants completed a pre-test and a post-test (perception and production of tones), and a pre-survey and post-survey (attitudes towards learning). After 30-40 minutes of additional training, students in the experimental group demonstrated no significant improvement in perception or production of Mandarin tones vis-à-vis the control group but differentiated themselves in some interesting attitudinal ways. The results of the study suggest that it would be worth conducting further research into the new pedagogical approach on a larger scale.
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Keywords
CFL/CSL Teaching; Lexical Tones; Innovative Pedagogy; Non-Tonal Language Speakers; Tone Perception and Production
Author(s) Information
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Acknowledgements
Not applicable.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
CRediT Authorship Contribution Statement
Angela Cook: Conceptualization, Methodology, Project Administration, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing
Yao Li: Methodology, Investigation, Formal Analysis, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing
Dongchen Yao: Methodology, Investigation, Formal Analysis, Writing – Review & Editing
Generative AI Use Disclosure Statement
Generative AI tools were used only for language editing and formatting assistance. The authors take full responsibility for the content of the manuscript.
Ethics Declarations
This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles of the World Medical Association (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki for research involving human participants. Ethical approval was obtained from The University of Queensland (Approval No.: 2025/HE000159).
Consent for Publication
Not applicable. The manuscript does not contain any identifiable individual information.
Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Data Availability
The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.