Chinese voices in portuguese: call needs for the oral skills learning

• Autor(a) principal: Castelo, Adelina
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/11987
• topic: Portuguese as foreign language; CALL materials; Chinese learners; Pronunciation; Oral skills; Português como língua estrangeira; Aprendentes chineses; Pronúncia; Competências orais; Materiais de CALL

This study aims at identifying which CALL (Computer-assisted Language Learning) materials should be made available to the Chinese learners of Portuguese as a Foreign Language (PFL) for them to improve their oral skills in a more autonomous way. Adopting an approach of needs analysis and clients’ views inquiry, it is based on an online questionnaire completed by 418 Chinese volunteer participants who are learners of PFL. The participants’ perceptions about (a) their own difficulties in pronunciation and oral understanding and (b) the CALL materials needed to address these oral skills were analysed in three ways: as a whole; according to the participants’ proficiency level in PFL; according to their geographical region. The results allowed for a reflection on the relevance of using these inquiries and for the proposal of a prioritisation list for the creation of new CALL materials. This list gives special importance to the tasks perceived as the most difficult by the participants (distinction of voicing, liquids and vowel height, understanding of text and word) and to the CALL types of materials considered the most needed (word recognition system, recorded rhymes, poems, tongue twisters, songs or texts with written transcription).