An Investigation On Kenyan Chinese Learners’ Phonetic Learning Strategies

In recent years,Chinese language and culture have had strong momentum in the world.Scholars interested in the field have shifted their attention to this emerging field.At the same time,the Kenyan government has indicated that it will officially introduce Chinese language teaching to school language courses.According to statistics,there are nearly 50 million people who use English and Swahili in Kenya.English and Swahili are the official languages of the Kenyan government.The history of entering Kenyan schools dates back to the colonial period.In its 1964 report,the Kenya Education Commission recommended the use of English as a medium of instruction in all levels of education in the Kenyan education system.It also recommended that Swahili as an important language elective subject to be taught in all schools.In recent years,the phenomenon of "Chinese fever" has set off a wave of language learning in Kenya.Kenyan Chinese teaching can be traced back to the trend of Chinese immigration to the Republic of Kenya in the late 1990s.In 1998,Nanjing Agricultural University of China sent some international students to Egton University in Kenya for project exchanges.These students also started an informal Chinese teaching program in addition to university courses.The University of Nairobi then established the first Confucius Institute in Africa to promote teaching in Chinese.At present,there are already many universities in Kenya that have begun to teach Chinese courses.There are many students enrolled in this language course,and Chinese has become one of the fastest growing foreign languages in Kenya.The Kenyan government also plans to incorporate Chinese into the national curriculum system.However,with the development of language,Chinese "teaching" and "learning" will face some challenges,such as the pronunciation of Chinese.Mr.Lin Wei(1996)once said:"To In order to learn a language well,we must lay the well,we must lay the foundation for pronunciation.At the same time,this study is based on the learning strategy classification system proposed by Oxford,R.L.The study conducted data collection in the form of questionnaires.The responses and interviews of the questionnaires were conducted at two universities in Kenya through a web platform.Students participating in the online questionnaire survey were from the Confucius Institute at the University of Nairobi and the Confucius Institute at Kenyatta University.The research is mainly aimed at the HSK 1-HSK 3 Chinese level,because this stage is the key period for learning Chinese.This paper attempts to find out the most effective strategies for learners to learn Chinese and pronunciation,and analyze whether the Chinese learning strategies used by learners and teachers are Useful for Chinese learning.For many years,the most basic research has focused on phonetics teaching,but this situation is changing,and the study of language teaching should be based on the learner side.For example,what are the strategies for learners to learn and master speech?Are these strategies applicable or useful?This shift can be attributed to the fact that some learners are self-taught,and although they have limited time in class,they are fluent in the language.Through the analysis of the cases,we can clarify how they do this and find the most effective learning method.