A Development of Knowledge and Understanding on Separable Verbs of Mandarin Chinese Grammar by Using Learners’ Errors

Abstract

The objectives of the present study were to investigate the outcome of the knowledge and understanding development on separable verbs using learners’ errors of the second-year students majoring in Chinese, Thepsatri Rajabhat University and the students’ satisfaction towards the technique and learning. The subjects obtained by purposive sampling, were 28 second-year students majoring in Chinese, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Thepsatri Rajabhat University. The research instruments were worksheets on separable verbs, pretest and posttest, and satisfaction questionnaire. The findings were as follows: after learning with Mandarin Chinese separable verbs using students’ errors, it was found that the average scores from the posttest were significantly higher than the pretest at the level of .01, indicated that the students’ knowledge and understanding were improved by the technique as stated in the hypothesis. The separable verbs lesson plans were consecutively focused on 4 main aspects which were meanings and general structures of separable verbs, grammatical functions, rules of grammar, and capability and ability of analyzing its errors. The results revealed that the students’ understanding of the all aspects was significantly improved. The students’ satisfaction towards the technique and learning was at the highest level in the overall. The main advantage of the technique was that the students consciously recognized their own errors, preventing them from redoing the mistakes. Also, the students’ anxiety was reduced because their answers were correctly reviewed by their friends.