The Acquisition Research On Kenya Students Studying Chinese Preposition "Zai"

Preposition "zai" is a very common but complex function word in Mandarin Chinese. It can represent the time, place, condition, range and also can be used to show the aspects, behavioral agent. In the process of learning Chinese, foreign students are always confused by the complicated uses of preposition. After one year’s practice of teaching abroud in Kenya, I found that for Kenyan students, the deviations and mistakes rate in the preposition "zai" is much higher than other prepositions. Kenya is an East African country which taken English and Kiswahili as its offical languages, ninety percent of Kenyans would say at least three languages including English, Kiswahili and their tribal language, although there are a lot of currently study on the preposition "zai" in China nowadays, but for language study in East Africa under Multilingualism circumstances is almost blank. This thesis originally from the perspective of native speakers’ mother tongue, study in the reasons why deviations and mistakes appear when Kenyans in the process of learning the preposition "zai", to summarize the types of biased error, and make an ontological study on these common mistake, thus summed a Chinese teaching methods apply to Kenya. Provide a reference for teaching Chinese prepositions in East Africa area.This paper is divided into seven parts:This first chapter i.e. the introduction part, firstly analysis the importance and necessity of the preposition "zai" in Kenya Chinese teaching from four aspects:the background and significance of topic, the Kenya language situation and Kenya Chinese learners acquisition of the preposition "zai". The second chapter is combined with the existing literature about the domestic and foreign preposition "zai". It mainly introduces the previous researches on the preposition "zai" and the preposition "zai" teaching in the east Africa. The third chapter is the error analysis of preposition "zai" for Kenya students. Firstly this part elaborates the theory of error analysis and the method of error study. Secondly according to the method, this thesis did a survey about the Kenya students’ acquisition situation of preposition "zai". In order to select enough dates, this thesis mainly has three kind of methods:selecting students’ conmen operation, having oral interviews, doing questionnaires. Then based on statistics result, this thesis classifies the error in the produce of Kenya students’learning and analyses the reason that result in bias error. The fourth chapter is the research about the students who learning preposition "zai" in Kenya always have the common errors. Putting forward some teaching suggestions which according to this special linguistic phenomenon. Mainly includes the following five aspects:location problem about the phrase "zai +location","zai+noun of locality", a problem about "zai "in the first sentence of the emergence and ellipsis, a difference of "zai" and "yu" and "zai " and "dang".The purpose of this chapter is to comb the knowledge, analysis why the student make the error, and then concluding some ways to help teacher who will teach the students whose first languages are English and Kiswahili. The fifth chapter mainly proposes to some suggestions about the preposition "zai" teaching in Kenya and analyzes the shortcomings of Kenya of Chinese teaching. The sixth is a summary. It has sum up the main contents, the research achievements and shortcomings of this thesis.I hope this study in Chinese prepositions teaching to the Kenya area can play a certain reference role, and can really help the Kenya students’acquisition of Chinese Preposition "zai", reduce errors, improve the efficiency of Chinese learning. And I hope this article can contribute to teaching Chinese as a foreign language study in East Africa.