Learning Communicative Mandarin Using Graphic Organisers

Abstract

Mandarin has a discrepancy between the phonological structure and orthographic features. Therefore, it is challenging for non-native speakers to master it.  As a result, a delayed-character introduction (DCI) approach which is known as pinyin is used in Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) to assist beginner students in learning Mandarin. Various studies have been conducted to determine which learning strategies students prefer and will help them to master the learning of Mandarin. Besides, such research outcome becomes a guideline for lecturers to design suitable teaching and learning strategies. The main objective of this research is to investigate how students can learn Mandarin successfully especially using learning strategies known as graphic organisers.  The quantitative method using a questionnaire was employed on 119 students who enrolled in Elementary Mandarin 1 at UiTM. The findings based on mean and standard deviation scores indicate that the majority of students agreed that graphic organisers help them to learn Mandarin. Graphics/ images and audios are easier to understand than information (words) and obtain higher scores with a mean of 3.91 and SD=1.0. In addition, most of the students use all the learning strategies in learning Mandarin. However, the most often used by students is to speak Mandarin by practicing and cooperating with others (M=4.00, SD=.96).