The Effect of Perceptual Training on Teaching Mandarin Chinese Tones

Computer-assisted perceptual training is effective in learning Mandarin tones both in monosyllabic and disyllabic words, but disyllabic tone training is nearly twice as effective as monosyllabic tone training (Li et al., A sound approach to language matters in honor of Ocke-Schwen Bohn. Aarhus University Library/Royal Danish Library—AU Library Scholarly Publishing Service, pp. 303–319, 2019). The present study analyzed the tone identification performance of Mandarin learners on both monosyllabic and disyllabic stimuli to provide explicit, meaningful information for teaching and learning tones. The results showed that all learners identified T4 significantly better than T1, T2, and T3 in the monosyllabic stimuli. In the disyllabic stimuli, T3 in the first syllable position was the most difficult to perceive, followed by T2, T1, and T4; in the second syllable position, T2 was the most problematic, followed by T1, T3, and T4. In addition, tone errors in both types of stimuli were analyzed to find the easier and the more difficult tone pairs after training. Finally, the learners were found to be generally proficient at perceiving tones in the final but not initial syllable, in compatible but not in conflicting tonal context, and in same tonal sequence but not in different tonal sequence. These findings provide evidence for successful tone learning through the increased utilization of disyllabic stimuli in Chinese language teaching.