Why Is the Chinese Curriculum Difficult for Immigrants’ Children from Southeast Asia

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the difficulties of immigrants’ children from Southeastern Asia on learningChinese phonetic symbols and provide further instructors a reference while educating them in early childhood. Theparticipants are native Taiwanese children (N = 40) and immigrant children from Southeastern Asia (N = 34) at thefirst grade in ten elementary schools in Taiwan. The result demonstrates that the first grade immigrants’ childreneasily made errors on recognizing consonants and vowels in the part of “Chinese phonetic symbol test”. Forpronunciation, the immigrant children got a high percentage of making mistakes on falling-rising sounds.