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Background study: Chinese tone pronunciation instruction gains increasingly attention and various instructional strategies have been studied to develop effective tones in students. Students usually listen to successful pronunciation stimuli provided by the teacher or peers, to be copied by themselves. However, individuals seem more sensitive to learn from their own voice to develop adequate tone pronunciation. Self‐Modelling is an instructional strategy that builds on learning from ones' own behaviour to develop target behaviours. Most available research builds on visual cues; hence the label Visual Self Modelling (VSM) that presents learners with videoclips of their own behaviour. VSM had been found to be successful to develop a range of skills. However, when focusing on language pronunciation, audio cues are to be preferred to direct the modelling process. This inspired the authors to the design of audio self‐modelling (ASM) that starts from recordings of students' pronunciation. These auditory recordings are hypothesized to be more appropriate as a base for self‐modelling. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of ASM when training Chinese as a foreign language students' tone pronunciation (focus on contour, pitch, duration. Additionally, the study explores the impact of ASM on students' self‐efficacy and motivation and the relationship between students' tone pronunciation skill, self‐efficacy, and motivation. Method: A quasi‐experimental design was adopted, involving 26 students in a six‐week intervention to study the improvement of their pronunciation of Chinese tones at word level. Seventeen students in the experimental condition were trained via ASM; the other nine students studied pronunciation as usual on the base of teacher provided pronunciation stimuli and corrective feedback. Students in the ASM were also individually interviewed about their learning experience. Results: Analysis of the quantitative pre‐ and post‐tests scores show that ASM results in a significantly higher posttest score for in each of the tone criteria as compared to the control group (contour, pitch and duration). Also, students' self‐efficacy and motivation improved to a significantly higher extent in the ASM research condition. No significant correlations were found between CFL students' tone pronunciation performance and their self‐efficacy and motivation. Analysis of the interview data further indicated that CFL students put forward positive attitudes and perceptions about ASM, next to some concerns. Conclusion: The significant findings present empirical evidence as to the efficacy of ASM as an instructional strategy to develop L2 skills, and push the idea to adopt self‐modelling on the base of person auditory recordings to direct L2 pronunciation instruction. Lay Description: What is currently known about the subject matter: There are four tones plus a neutral tone in Modern Chinese.Chinese tones are very difficult to acquire for non‐native Chinese people.Listening to one's own voice has been proved to be effective for learning music What the paper adds to this: It demonstrates that listening to one's own adaptive voice is effective for learning Chinese tones.Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) students feel more confident when listening to their own adaptive pronunciation. The implications of study findings for practitioners: Individuals learning a foreign language can consider using audio self‐modelling—listening to their own adaptive pronunciation—as a strategy to practice their pronunciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing attention on Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) pronunciation instruction gives us an opportunity to look into the current directions of teaching CFL and the specific instructional pronunciation strategies employed by CFL teachers. This paper offers a review of empirical evidence on the use and impact of instructional pronunciation strategies in the CFL field from 1980 to 2019. Our findings reveal that: (1) controlled segmental-based strategies--such as comparative strategies, listening, and repeating strategies--are used widely and effectively to improve pronunciation of Chinese initials and finals; (2) suprasegmental-based strategies, especially computer-assisted strategies, largely improve CFL students' tone accuracy; and (3) the validity of assessments in quantitative studies needs to be further developed by including comparative groups, making tests before and after instructions, and involving discourse assessment contents.

This paper explores topics and techniques of prognostication as recorded in medieval Buddhist historical literature, with an emphasis on the Gāosēng zhuàn 高僧傳 (GSZ) and Xù gāosēng zhuàn 續高僧傳 (XGSZ). The paper first provides a short survey of how prognostication is treated in Chinese Buddhist translated texts. In these 'canonical' sources there is clear ambiguity over the use of supernatural powers: on the one hand, such practices are criticised as non-Buddhist or even heterodox; on the other, narratives on Śākyamuni's former and present lives as well as accounts of other buddhas, bodhisattvas, and the Buddha's disciples abound with descriptions of their special abilities, including knowledge of the future. In contrast, the GSZ and XGSZ display a clear standpoint concerning mantic practices and include them as integral aspects of monastics' lives. The two texts articulate that the ability to predict the future and other supernatural powers are natural by-products of spiritual progress in the Buddhist context. This paper discusses the incorporation of various aspects of the Indian and Chinese traditions in monastics' biographies, and investigates the inclusion of revelations of future events (for example, in dreams) and mantic techniques in these texts. In addition, it traces parallels to developments in non-Buddhist literature and outlines some significant differences between the GSZ and the XGSZ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]