| Summary: | 碩士 === 中國文化大學 === 華語文教學研究所 === 99 === The objective of this research was to investigate how foreign spouses in Taiwan learn Mandarin phonetic symbols. The study first identified areas posing difficulties in the process and the patterns of mistakes emerging repeatedly while foreign spouses moved forward with their learning. Concrete and effective teaching strategies were then suggested to enhance learning effectiveness of the participant population. A total of sixteen learners (foreign spouses) from an ele-mentary school in Taipei County comprised the sample students. A survey aimed at understanding their learning experience with Mandarin phonetic symbols was conducted prior to the teaching session. Data were collected through interviews, classroom observations, and teaching journals. Based on these observations, the patterns of the learners’ mistakes were identified, and effective teaching strate-gies and activities were designed for providing remedial instruction to the par-ticipants with the expectation of improving their learning effectiveness .
The results of the study show that
A. Difficulties faced by foreign spouses during their learning of Mandarin Pho-netic Symbols were lack of confidence, lack of support from family, and in-adequate teaching materials. The patterns of mistakes the learners frequently made included incorrect pronunciation, spelling mistakes, and an inability to distinguish between similar symbols and tones.
B. The second language teaching methods, such as total physical response, au-dio-lingual approach, communicative language teaching, task-based language teaching, and other effective teaching strategies could be applied to assist foreign spouses to learn Mandarin phonetic symbols effectively.
C. The teaching activities such as extended teaching hours, multi-functional teaching activities and materials specially designed based on the students’ mistake patterns, as well as emotional support and encouragement provided by the instructor, could promote the learning effectiveness of the students.
Finally, suggestions on teaching Mandarin phonetic symbols to foreign spouses and directions for further research were proposed at the end of the study.
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