This paper reports a pretest-posttest experimental study of the acquisition of English tones by Mandarin EFL learners in a Chinese university. The target tones are high fall, high rise, fall-rise and complex level tones embedded in non-English words, one/two-syllable English words and short English sentences. The subjects are 31 Mandarin EFL learners majoring in English, who have learnt English...

Phonetic acquisition of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) for learners in dialectal areas has been increasingly regarded as an important research area in second language acquisition. However, most existing research has been focused on finding out the transfer effect of dialect on English production from a second language acquisition point of view, but ignores the impact of Mandarin. The prese...

Although is a frequently used subordinating conjunction in English. However, non-nativeness is often observed in Chinese EFL learners’ although output during pedagogical practice. This paper aims at exploring the characteristics of Chinese EFL learners’ although employment in Chinese EFL learners’ writing. The study is a corpus-based analysis launched under the analytical framework of contrasti...

This study examined the role of the native language (L1) transfer in a non-native language (L2) acquisition of the there-insertion construction at the syntax-semantics interface. Specifically, the study investigated if Mandarin EFL learners would make overgeneralization errors in the situation where an L1 argument structure constitutes a superset of its L2 counterpart. Verbs of existence and ap...

To draw EFL teachers’ attention to pronunciation difficulties resulting from L1 phonotactic constraints, this study examined the hypothesis that certain syllable structures could cause more mispronunciation than segmental sounds for Mandarin-speaking EFL learners. A 145-word reading passage was developed with a total of 30 target sounds, which included the problematic syllable structures that e...

The purpose of this study is to elicit problem causing word stress patterns for Turkish EFL (English as a foreign language) learners and investigate whether Internet-based pronunciation lesson is superior to traditional pronunciation lesson in terms of enhancing Turkish EFL learners’ accurate production of stressed syllables in English words. A pre-post test design with two groups of Turkish EF...

As most traditional classroom environments in English as Foreign Language (EFL) still restrict learners’ collaboration and interaction in college writing classes, today, the majority of EFL learners are accessing Social Networking Sites (SNSs) as online communities of practice (CoPs) for adopting informal collaborative learning as a way of practicing English beyond the classroom. This study aim...

The present study investigates the prosodic differences of English mild imperative sentences between native American English speakers and Chinese EFL (learning English as foreign language) learners within the framework of AM Theory. The study found out that prosodic native speakers and Chinese EFL learners exhibit the following prosodic differences: (i) phonological patterns of sentence-stress ...