Tone Category Learning Should Serve Tone Word Learning: An Experiment of Integrating Pronunciation Teaching in the L2 Chinese Curriculum

Tones are the primary focus in teaching L2 Chinese pronunciation. Seemingly, less effort is made to integrate the tone category and tone word learning. The current study tested whether the use of (near) minimal pairs formed by monosyllabic and disyllabic words that the learners have previously learned can direct L2 Chinese learners’ attention to tonal contrast, thus, improve their tone production and memorization of the tone words. 66 beginner-level learners were assigned to a dictation only (traditional) group and a perception plus production training (experimental) group in which minimal and near-minimal pairs that included tonal contrasts were used as training stimuli. Both groups recorded the target words in a pretest, an immediately administered posttest, and a delayed posttest. Using native speakers’ comprehensibility judgment as assessment, we found that the experimental group had better comprehensibility than the traditional group in the immediate and delayed posttests. The comprehensibility ratings seemed to vary across words. Participants also had two dictations in the pretest and delayed posttest respectively. The words used in the recording tasks had a significantly higher dictation score than those not used in the recording tasks in the posttest. The pedagogical significance of these findings is discussed.