Analysis of Chinese Students Pronunciation Problems and its Pedagogical Implication

According to the process of the second language acquisition,the study of English pronunciation for Chinese students must be influenced by the native language.This paper focuses on the analysis of the pronunciation problems that Chinese students confront.The differences between English and Chinese pronunciation were analyzed in detail,and from this analysis some proper solutions for teaching such problems were proposed.     

A qualitative investigation of trainees＇ adjustment in Japan：A case study of trainees from Indonesia

In Japan, there is a residence status known as “the trainee”. This is the status for residents who undertake “activities to learn and acquire the technology, skills, or knowledge at public or private organizations in Japan”. With the introduction of the Industrial Training Program in 1993, trainees have been permitted to extend their stay in Japan for education and employment purposes up to a maximum of three years. This study aims to investigate the adjustment styles of trainees and to consider the changes in their attitudes toward Japan in the course of this adjustment. Six male Indonesian trainees （mean age=23.83） were invited to a semi-structured interview. They were employed at the same factory, involved in the manufacture of car components, and were trainees in their first-, second-, and third-years. The interview mainly focused on the trainees＇ Japanese language skills, the changes in their images of Japan or Japanese people, the communication between them and their Japanese colleagues, and the difficulties they encountered during their stay in Japan. The results revealed that there were clear differences between the first, second, and third trainees. As the trainees＇ Japanese language skills improved, their communication with the Japanese colleagues increased. Subsequently, they developed more positive images of Japan and Japanese people and hoped to have more informal communication with Japanese people.     

Removal of copper ions from electroplating rinse water using electrodeionization

An improved configuration of the membrane stack was adopted in the electrodeionization （EDI） cell to prevent precipitation of bivalent metal hydroxide during the running. The operational parameters that influenced the removal of copper ions from the dilute solution were optimized. The result showed that a moderate decrease in the inlet pH value and a moderate increase in the applied voltage could achieve a better removal effect. The steady process of electroplating wastewater treatment could be achieved with a removal efficiency of more than 99.5% and an enrichment factor of 5-14. The concentration of copper in purified water was less than 0.23 mg/L. This demonstrated the applicability of recovering heavy metal ions and purified water from electroplating effluent for industrial reuse.     

International Migration for Educational Purposes——A Study of Chinese Students Studying for a Master Degree in the UK

This study was initiated by dramatic increase of international migration for educational purpose. The paper aims to investigate the reasons behind Chinesel students’ choice of studying in the UK from two different aspects of ’push’ factors and ’pull’ factors.The study was carried out among Chinese students studying in the university of Bristol, Cardiff University the University of Edinburgh. Both questionnaire and interview were used in data collection. The general findings showed that students’ study destination choice was influenced by ’push’ factors from students’ home country and ’pull’ factors from the host country.     

A Comparison of Demonstratives in English and Chinese

This paper re-examines the comparison of the demonstratives in English and Chinese,which has been discussed by many linguists.They argue that the demonstratives in English and Chinese don’t correspond symmetrically,and that ’这’ in Chinese,for example,is more widely used than this in English.Earlier approaches to the comparison in terms of space,time and text distance are reviewed.This paper assumes that,compared with English demonstratives,the proximity indicated by Chinese demonstratives is more influenced by psychological factors.This paper holds that the space,time and text distance as well as psychological distance act upon each other,co-determining the choice of demonstratives in Chinese.     

Politeness Principle and the Choice of Address Forms in Intercultural Communication

This paper makes a tentative study of the politeness strategies stressed in the choice of address forms in Chinese,American and Japanese culture under the guidance of Politeness Principle by Brown and Levinson.Through a comprehensive analysis,It is concluded that the major function of English address forms is to indicate solidarity and realize positive politeness,In contrast,both Chinese and Japanese address forms emphasize deference and help achieve negative politeness;It is the author’s hope that a better understanding of these addressing rules in different cultures will benefit effective use of these languages and help avoid miscommunication in intercultural communication.     

Hong Kong students＇ approaches to learning： Cross-cultural comparisons

Anecdotal evidence abounds in Hong Kong to the effect that students entering tertiary education are predisposed to a ＂rote＂ learning approach. With the internalisation of higher education in many countries, there is still insufficient understanding of how Chinese students approach their learning. Except few studies were conducted locally, there have been no systematic studies undertaken and there is a tendency to rely on anecdotal statements about Hong Kong students＇ approaches to learning. This study was designed to see if Hong Kong Chinese students who enrolled into a 3-year undergraduate programme in occupational therapy predisposed to a surface or deep approach to learning react differently when moving progressively from one stage to the next stage in their curriculum. The study adopted a longitudinal design method and measured students＇ changes in their approaches to learning using the Biggs＇ Study Process Questionnaire （SPQ）. The internal consistency reliability estimates for SPQ scales for samples of Hong Kong, Australia and UK were compared. The results of this study indicated that Hong Kong Chinese students demonstrated a higher mean for the deep approach learning and a lower mean for the surface approach, similar to other Hong Kong studies conducted in other tertiary institutions in Hong Kong and Australia.     

China Once Again Demands Japan Correct Mistakes in Textbook

The Chinese side has once again demanded that the Japanese government take effective measures to correct its serious mistakes in the history textbook fabricated by rightist scholars. An official from the Chinese Foreign Ministry called in an official of the Japanese embassy here Wednesday at the request of the Chinese government, and handed a memorandum on the textbook issue. The     

A Relook at the 3rd Person-s

This article takes a relook at the 3rd person-s in English and is intended to prove that Chinese learners of English studying in L1 environment have great difficulty with the morpheme at intermediate level through frequency analysis of the errors made in four samples of two sophomores of a university majoring in English who were selected through convenience sampling. The author tries to investigate factors that explain why the morpheme is far behind in the morpheme acquisition order for the learners and provide implications and suggestions to college English teaching (including secondary education).     

The impact of storybooks on kindergarten children＇s mathematical achievement and approaches to learning

This paper presents a mixed methods study that explored how storybooks influence kindergarten children＇s mathematical achievement and approaches to mathematics learning. Teachers＇ observations and research stating primary grade children＇s lack of mathematical knowledge and negative attitudes towards mathematics served as the impetus for the study. Three kindergarten teachers taught a mathematics unit using various children＇s storybooks and the characters in the stories as the context for mathematical problems. The results of the study show an impact on students＇ mathematical achievement as well as the identification of four themes that emerged on how students＇ approaches to learning were influenced when storybooks were integrated into the mathematics unit.     

Values—— A study of teacher and student perceptions in four countries

The study aimed to assess and compare the values prevalent among the students and teachers of Universities in Bangladesh, Japan, USA and Germany. The sample consisted of 480 students and 236 teachers. The sample included 120 undergraduate students Japan; 120 undergraduate students from Bangladesh; 120 undergraduate students from USA, and 120 undergraduate students from Germany. The faculty sample included 60 teachers from Japan, 60 teachers from Bangladesh; 60 teachers from USA, and 56 teachers from Germany. To identify the value preferences of the individuals a list of 10 values, pro-social, achievement, power over others, security, self direction, otherworldliness, fatalism, narcissism, inner directed, and conservative, based on previous values studies by Singh and Parek were prepared. The first five values were identified in previous studies as functional （Singh, 1975） and other five were identified as dysfunctional （Parek, 1988） in the context of national development of Asian cultures. The results revealed that Bangladeshi students held stronger preferences for values identified as functional values than for those identified as dysfunctional. Japanese students indicated stronger preferences for the values identified as functional values except narcissism. The American students indicated a preference for three of the five values identified as functional but also ranked narcissism and other worldliness as third and fifth preferred values respectively. German student showed a preference for functional values, except narcissism which they also ranked as third. Bangladeshi teachers＇ preferences for functional values were higher than dysfunctional values. Japanese teachers indicated a preference for functional values except narcissism. American teachers preferred functional values except other worldliness. German teachers＇ value preferences were also functional, except for narcissism which they ranked as fifth. Students and teachers in the four countries sampled indicate preferences for values identified as functional with few exceptions. This research suggests that value preferences among university students and teachers are more similar than different, suggesting a homogenizing effect （Boli, 2005） on human values.     

An Empirical Study of Students’ Sight Translation Practice

Most of the studies on sight translation are related to analyzing effort models.Some scholars have established effort models for interpreting activities.However,the majority of the research published in English was conducted between English and European languages.Experiments written in English on interpreting between English and Chinese are limited.The purpose of this research is to explore the problems that occurred in students’performance of sight translation with a view to improving students’performance and the training method.The results of the experiment show that ST skills are composed of two parts:linguistic capacity and delivery skills.The problems that occurred in the case study were presented as delivery problems.However,the reason for the problems was lack of linguistic transfer capacity.This study recommends that students should be trained both on linguistic capacity and delivery skills.     

Dissimilarities Between Gary Snyder’s Zen and Chinese Zen Thought

Gary Snyder is a famous American poet in the 1960s.His works often reflect Zen thought,which highly influenced the Beat Generation of that time,and even the whole western society.This article attempts to discuss some of the possible aspects in which Snyder’s Zen diverts from Chinese Zen thought.To find out the answer,four of Snyder’s poetry collections were mainly consulted,as well as information about the environment that he’d been living in.The discrepancy this article will show case is three-folded:first,what Snyder pursued might be"square Zen",which is different from Chinese Zen;second,his poems integrated some ideas from Indian folklores,thus contradicting that of Zen;third,giving consideration to his western background and specific historical environment,he might misinterpret Chinese Zen thought unconsciously or intentionally.This is an area which so far no current studies about Snyder have probed into,so the results are just tentative and exploratory.     

Managing Chinese Catalogingat The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Library

This paper describes the experience and the observation of the author as a cataloger of Chinese publications at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Library. The trends in collection development of Chinese language materials in the Library have a crucial impact on Chinese cataloging. The way that Chinese cataloging has been haudled in this rapidly changing environment is reported here.     

Analysis and comparison of safety and fatigue comfort of postal bicycles based on finite element method and sEMG

The safety and the fatigue comfort were compared between a domestic and a Japanese postal bicycle. Firstly, the fatigue comfort of these two kinds of bicycles was evaluated by surface electromyographic signal (sEMG) experiment, in which human lower limb muscle groups were research objects, and the average EMG (AEMG) index and median frequency (MF) were chosen as the evaluation indexes. Secondly, the safety of these two kinds of bicycle frames was analyzed and compared by using the finite element analysis. The results show that the riding fatigue comfort of the Japanese postal bicycle is better, and the Japanese postal bicycle frame is more safe and reasonable although both the postal bicycles meet the requirement for strength. Finally, based on the above analysis, the frame structure and related parameters of the domestic postal bicycle were improved with reference to the Japanese postal bicycle and biomechanics theory.     

An Exploratory Case Study of Formal Similarityand Psychological Similarity in Language Transfer

Second language Learners’ awareness of the native-target language "distance" was said to be included in the constraints of language transfer,i.e.whether or not learners actually transfer a form can depend in part on the degree that learners establish a similarity between the two languages in form and psychology.This paper aims to explore the roles that formal similarity and psychological similarity playing upon language transfer and the detailed relationship between them each other,by analyzing the data coming from two cases where Chinese students’ acquiring Japanese and English,so as to provide a scientific experimental basis for better understanding of language transfer and higher efficiency of second language learning.     

Through Musical Communication to Development of Competence in Culture Awareness and Expression

This study presents an example of a music workshop which brought together pupils and students of different music schools, students of musicology, composition and classroom teaching, teachers, professors and composer on the common topics in contemporary music. The purpose of the workshop was to encourage an active and creative participation of everybody involved in a way that went beyond the usual practice used in cultural activities in education. In this respect, the workshop emphasised the importance of the creative expression of experience, ideas and emotions in the field of music. The results of the interview, which were conducted by some of the workshop participants, point out the complex occurrence of various indicators, which at the level of personal and social factors have determined the nature of communication through contemporary music and indirectly influenced the development of competence in cultural awareness and expression. Challenges identified included students＇ lack of musical experiences for contemporary music at all educational levels, the low priority given to contemporary music in schools as well as teachers＇ lack of professional knowledge in this field. The study highlights the need for more experience in contemporary musical language in general and music professional schools.     

Obligation Orientation and Right-Based Principle——The Difference between Chinese and Western Legal Culture Influenced by Confucianism and Christianity

As an important part of cultural and ideological progress construction,the improvement of Chinese modern legal system has become a keynote in the process of constructing the harmonious society in China.In the course of the development of Chinese legal system,transplanting from western legal culture is becoming a trend.Therefore,it is necessary to study the difference between Chinese and western legal culture and its influencing elements so as to provide a cultural basis for this transplant.As for cultural factor,Confucianism is the dominated thoughts in traditional Chinese history and Christianity occupies the same place in western culture,accordingly,their influence on the difference between Chinese and western legal culture is great.This paper discusses the difference of the obligation orientation and right-based principle between Chinese and western legal culture influenced by Confucianism and Christianity aiming at provide some important inspirations for the transplant of western legal culture in improving Chinese modern legal system.     

Group Investigation in a College English Program at a Chinese University:A Case Study

This study investigated the application and the effect of Group Investigation(GI) in the College English Program in a Chinese University. A qualitative case study method was used to understand the GI system used by Chinese instructors as well as the achievements acquired and challenges met by the participants. Three instructors and fifteen second-year-undergraduates taking a course titled Sources of European Culture participated. Interviews, observations, and documents were used to collect the data. Data analysis showed Chinese instructors applied a GI technique similar to that discussed by Johnson and Johnson(1999); however, GI in the Chinese context demanded more effort from the teacher for designing tasks and provided help in modeling uses of English and in preparing visual, especially Power Point, presentations. Although participants used their mother tongue at some stages, their autonomy over English learning was activated, and horizons in the course content were broadened.