Error Analysis Of Singapore Students’ Chinese Cover Letters

In second language learning, writing is an important part of the output because itrequires that students should have stored certain language knowledge with correctgrammar rules.For many second language learners, writing Chinese characters isdifficult, however, it is far more difficulty to write Chinese sentences abiding by thegrammar rules. Writing letters demands students not only to master the basic content ofwriting, but also to choose a appropriate format, therefore, the letter writing is moredemanding for second language learners.It is necessary and compulsory for the learners of Chinese to master standard Chineseletters writing, because it is required in "The Outline of HSK Level Standards andGrammar Level" as follows: in the early and middle period, students are required towrite simple practical letters, including the letter to ask for leave, letters and coverletters etc.; From another perspective, it is also an important goal to teach students topractice their knowledge in the practical life. In addition, the number of Singaporestudents who take part in HSK Examinations in recent years has increased year by yeardue to China’s increasing overall national strength and the development of China andSingapore’s friendly bilateral relations. But according to recent studies, it found thatmore and more new Chinese family gradually abandon the use of Chinese and useEnglish in daily communication instead, which is not conducive to the spread of theChinese in Singapore. Hence, it is urgent and necessary for Chinese teachers to seeksimple learning methods in Chinese language teaching for the purpose of arousingstudents’ interests in learning Chinese.In this thesis, the author takes200Singapore students’ effective Chinese cover letterswith the title “To Write a Cover Letter” as examples. All samples using for investigatingand analyzing are collected from the HSK corpus of Beijing Language University withits scanning volumes. These samples mainly covers several common errors in students’Chinese letter writing. Based on making analysis of these errors, it is beneficial to guidethe Singapore students in Chinese letter writing teaching through investigating theirerrors and find solutions. Moreover, effective teaching methods play a vital role not only in improving teaching efficiency and adjusting Chinese writing teaching modes,but also in enhancing students’ Chinese language application ability to some degree.In this thesis, it mainly covers the following aspects: first, the author summarizes theformer related researches on Chinese cover letter writing both written by Chinesepeople and international students learning Chinese, and make the basic referencestandard for Chinese cover writing on the basis of Chinese letter writing theory, whichis connected to reference version of the dynamic corpus of HSK. Secondly, the authorcollects the Chinese cover letters of Singapore students form the corpus of HSK, andthen making statistic and analysis of errors based on the standard which has been set outbefore. The errors are mainly including punctuation, formats and diction in Chineseletter writing. Third, on the basis of analysis of the errors, looking for a targeted letterwriting learning and teaching methods, to guide the development of writing. The authorlooks forwards to putting forward more targeting and specialized teaching methods forwriting teaching so as to further guide cover letter writing by analyzing their errors.