Development of ICT Educational Software for Perceptional Training of Mandarin Chinese Nasal Codas

Abstract

We have been doing research on an effective training method for Japanese speakers to be able to discriminate between the Mandarin Chinese nasal codas “-n” and “-ng”, which is one of the most difficult phonemic contrasts for Japanese speakers. Few research studies have focused on a solution specifically for Japanese learners of Mandarin Chinese to be able to discriminate between “-n” and “- ng”. Based on this background, we are working on developing ICT (Information and Communication Technology) educational software for perceptional training of Mandarin Chinese nasal codas. In this paper, we introduce our perceptional training system, and then, describe the results of the preliminary training tests with and without our training system. By observing the participants’ behaviors while training with the system, and their opinions from the questionnaire, we found that there were no problems in system usability.