Development of a Computer-Aided Language Learning Environment for Mandarin – First Steps

Abstract:

This contribution reports first activities towards the development of a computeraided pronunciation environment for teaching Mandarin to Germans. This 3-year-project is funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research. Based on a contrastive analysis of Mandarin and German, a preliminary study of learner errors was conducted. We collected perception as well as production data from 19 German first-year students of Mandarin at FU Berlin in order to perform an evaluation of actual errors as perceived by native speakers of Mandarin. These outcomes are utilized to fine-tune the actual training systems a general outline of which is also presented in this paper.


Year: 2009
In session: Sprache und Didaktik
Pages: 354 to 363