In the present day Mandarin Chinese has become a commonly taught language in the U.S. Mandarin is widely taught in colleges and universities; K-12 Chinese programs, including immersion programs, have also grown rapidly. However, to date little research has been conducted on the latter programs. This study examines immersion programs in elementary schools. I investigate three aspects: 1) teaching methods in Chinese immersion programs, 2) acquisition of grammatical patterns, and 3) computer assisted methods for character learning. I adopted a qualitative approach; the methods I employ include observation, interviews, questionnaires, and tests. Data were collected from two immersion programs and two non-immersion programs in a Southwestern city in the U.S. The first study compares the teaching methods used in Chinese immersion and non-immersion programs. It is found that the two immersion programs adopted the functional approach with explicating in each class time, while the non-immersion programs used the analytical approach with practicing in context in most classes. The immersion students produced spontaneous speech in each class, while non-immersion language class students did not. The second study examines how immersion learners acquire the ba-construction and time phrases. We found that immersion students produced not many ba sentences but a large number of time phrases. However, in terms of accuracy, ba sentences were produced almost flawlessly, while time phrases were often placed incorrectly in a sentence. This result is quite different from what we find in adult learners who mostly acquire Chinese in a non-immersion setting. It shows that immersion learners’ acquisition differs from both L1 acquisition and L2 acquisition by adults. The third study investigates how computer-assisted methods help students learn Chinese characters. I compare immersion learners with heritage learners with respect to how they respond to computer-assisted methods. No difference is found between the two groups of learners in terms of their performance in character recognition, pronunciation and writing. It is also found that while computer assisted materials helped with character recognition, it did not help with character writing.

The Chinese ba-construction is a frequently used, language-specific construction that is difficult for most learners who study Chinese as a second language. The purpose of this study is to test the effectiveness of a Chinese second language pedagogical model on the ba-construction among college-level English-speaking learners of Chinese. For the ba-construction, namely “Subject + ba + ba-NP + ba-VP (Verb + Complement),” the investigator proposed an L2 instructional model that emphasizes both syntactic and semantic relationships between the ba-NP and the ba-VP. Based on this model and on cognitive theories of second language acquisition, the investigator designed a series of grammar instruction sessions that combined meaningful input, communicative tasks and form-focused instruction on four frequently used types of the ba-construction and one less frequently used type. The instruction sessions were administered weekly to the participants for a total of four weeks. Fourteen participants at two proficiency levels, namely novice and intermediate, were recruited for the study. Quantitative data were obtained from a pre-test, a post-test and a delayed post-test in the form of four measurement tasks: Grammaticality Judgement, Cloze, Translation and Contextualized Sentence Production with Keywords. Using a split-plot statistical model (with the time factor crossed and the proficiency level factor non-assignable), non-parametric alternative tests and a semi-structured interview, the investigator addressed the following three research questions: 1) Is the pedagogical model effectively strong in explaining the ba-construction and facilitating L2 learners’ comprehension and production? 2) Are the instruction sessions beneficial to L2 learners’ understanding of different form–meaning mappings of the ba-construction? 3) Do the effects of the pedagogical model and the instruction vary for L2 learners at different proficiency levels? Data analyses revealed a significant main time effect on participants’ overall performance and performance on each measurement task; the main group effect was not significant except for the Cloze task; no interaction effects were found in either the comprehension or production tasks. While participants acquired the ba-constructions in comprehension significantly better than in production, different trends in acquisition patterns were also found between their performances in these two language skills. After receiving instruction, participants performed significantly better in comprehension tasks and could maintain that level of performance in the delayed post-test; their performance on production tasks became better right after the instruction sessions, but deteriorated significantly afterwards. The participants’ improvement on ba-constructions with directional complements (Type 3) and resultative complements (Type 4), as well as the less commonly used type, was significant in general; in comprehension tasks, participants’ improvement on Type 5 was significantly higher than that for the Type 1 ba-constructions expressing relocation/displacement. Data collected from the semi-structured interviews indicated participants’ favorable evaluation and need for integrated L2 instruction that included elements of pedagogical grammar, especially on language-specific constructions. These results point to the importance of L2 grammar instruction in drawing L2 learners’ attention to form and to the association between form and meaning; instruction plays an indispensable role in communicative L2 classes and serves as a necessary reinforcement to the frequent exposure to meaningful L2 input. For Chinese ba-constructions, instruction that focuses on declarative knowledge is beneficial across proficiency levels.

單獨的「把」或「被」字本身並沒有言明「使動」語意，但是一旦加上「得」結果補語，就會帶出「使動結果」語意；是故，我們認為「把/被…得」字句是「結果格式」（resultative construction）。本文以「格式語法」（Construction Grammar）的觀點為基礎，分析「把/被…得」字句。本文提出在「把/被…得」字句出現的動詞不侷限於「處置式」動詞 (disposal verbs)；「使動結果」語意是格式和動詞之語意互動的結果。另外，本文也提出「把…得」字句和「被…得」字句均屬於「結果格式」的家族成員，因為這兩個字句包含許多共同的語意特性；例如，兩個字句都包含兩個小事件 (subevent)，一個是動詞事件 (verbal subevent)，另一個則是格式事件 (constructional subevent)，而動詞事件是促使格式事件發生的媒介 (means)。又格式事件通常決定了「把/被…得」字句整句的時態。最後，本文再透過Jackendoff的概念結構 (conceptual structure)，將「把/被…得」字句予以分解成更細部的語意單位，藉此更進一步了解「把/被…得」字句語意的構成。 / The use of ba/bei alone does not imply causative meanings; however, when a de result complement is added to ba/bei constructions, the causative sense will arise concomitantly with resultivity. Therefore, ba/bei…de in the sentences, two discontinous morphemes locking together, mark the whole construction as a resultative construction. By adopting constructional approaches, we show that ba/bei…de resultatives are not limited to disposal verbs and they are made of a family of resultative constructions. Without the inherent disposal property and the causative meaning, stative, perception, and psychological verbs are still compatible with ba/bei…de resultatives. The causative-resultative meaning comes from the integration among all the components of the construction, both structurally and semantically. Also, under such a constructional approach, we will find that many semantic properties of ba/bei…de resultatives can be predicted from their meaning structures: a resultative sentence contains a constructional subevent and a verbal subevent, and this verbal subevent serves as the means by which the constructional subevent takes place. As for their temporal relation, the verbal subevent may be cotemporal with the constructional subevent, or may overlap with it, or may entirely precede it, depending on the pragmatics of the situation. And the end-boundedness of the constructional subevent correlates with the telicity of a resultative construction. And with some modifications of Jackendoff’s conceptual structure, we discern how a resultative concept is characterized in the human mental representation. In terms of a set of primitives, we can easily detect that ba/bei…de constructions are made of two separable subevents, and that the verbal subevent is temporally prior to the constructional subevent.