Online Supplementary Resources for Teaching Chinese Pronunciation:
A Review of Two Chinese Pronunciation Websites
Reviewed by Soon Goh Ying
Summary in English
Pronunciation instruction is very important in the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language. Good pronunciation websites can play an active role in assisting students to master Chinese pronunciation. Two Chinese pronunciation websites are reviewed. There are Pinyin Practice which can be accessed at http://pinyinpractice.com/wangzhi/ and Shufa West at http://www.shufawest.us/language/tonedrill.html. The two websites are reviewed based on four aspects. These are the design of the websites, activities on the websites, the integration of the websites' activities into classroom teaching as well as the degree of individualization, i.e. how they cater to the individual learners’ needs. The Chinese pronunciation websites have to be able to improve Chinese pronunciation acquisition process, as well as to enhance the effectiveness of Chinese pronunciation instruction. Good Chinese pronunciation websites may assist in strengthening the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language as there are many limitations in classroom Chinese teaching. These useful websites may provide a self-improvement platform for students’ self-learning. Although pronunciation websites cannot be seen as the panacea for Chinese pronunciation instruction, they can still be deemed as an alternative for Chinese instructors in the improvement of their classroom instruction as well as for Chinese learners for the betterment of their pronunciation learning. Therefore reviews of pronunciation websites should be encouraged as to further promote the development and sharing of good pronunciation websites to support the teaching and learning of Chinese as a foreign language. In a nutshell, these two websites are suitable for elementary Chinese learners for pronunciation drill, revision purposes as well as for classroom teaching.