Download or read book On the Effect of Cantonese L1 Phonological Awareness on the Acquisition of English L2 Phonology Among Primary Students in Hongkong written by Lau-Luk Margery Yeung and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "On the Effect of Cantonese (L1) Phonological Awareness on the Acquisition of English (L2) Phonology Among Primary Students in HongKong" by Lau-luk, Margery, Yeung, 楊柳綠, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled On the Effect of Cantonese (L1) Phonological Awareness on the Acquisition of English (L2) Phonology among Primary Students in Hong Kong submitted by Yeung Lau Luk Margery for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in April 2007 Due to their logographic nature, Chinese characters are traditionally learned with a whole-word approach. Starting from kindergarten, students in Hong Kong learn Chinese and English words and attain bilingual literacy in this way. However, this type of learning results in low levels of both Cantonese (L1) and English (L2) phonological awareness (PA). Phonological awareness is not only significant for emergent literacy in an alphabetic language but also for decoding unfamiliar words. For this reason, Hong Kong students have difficulty learning to read English (especially sounding out and spelling unfamiliar words). Meanwhile, Chinese readers in mainland China and other places who learn to read Chinese with a phonetic script are found to have higher phonological awareness of Chinese (Bertelson, Chen & de Gelder, 1997; H. Cheung et al., 2001; Holm & Dodd, 1996; Huang & Hanley, 1995; Read et al., 1986). In light of the advantage brought about by a native phonetic script, the present research aims to investigate the effect of Cantonese phonological awareness on English learning by comparing the performances of an Experimental Group with phonological awareness training and a Control Group without training, both before and after training. Two experiments were conducted from 2003 to 2004. In the pilot experiment, the Experimental Group (n = 8) which had received 10 hours of Cantonese Romanisation instruction had no immediate advantage over the control group (n = 9) concerning their post-training English phonological awareness test. However, after the two groups had received 10 hours of English phonics instruction, the Experimental Group a made significantly bigger mean progress than the Control Group (p = 0.035) in their post-training English phonological awareness test. In the main experiment, the Experimental Group (n = 19) which had received 20 hours of Cantonese Romanisation instruction made a bigger mean progress than Control Group 1 (n = 20) and Control Group 2 (n = 17) together (p = 0.020). After the Experimental Group and Control Group 1 had received 20 hours of English phonics instruction, the former no longer seemed to have an edge over the latter. Despite some inconsistency of the findings, both experiments confirmed that Cantonese Romanisation instruction had a positive effect on English phonological awareness, be it a greater or a lesser extent compared with English phonics instruction. The findings from this research are consistent with previous findings on Hanyu Pinyin: (1) phonological awareness is trainable through native phonological awareness training, and (2) the improved native phonological awareness can transfer to a second language. In addition, this research also shows that Cantonese Romanisation instruction helps Hong Kong children learn English phonics more effectively. This is also consistent with Mok (2001) who showed the positive effect of Cantonese Romanisation instruction on the learning of Hanyu Pinyin. To conclude, Cantonese phonological awareness instruction is beneficial to the l

Download or read book On the Effect of Cantonese L1 Phonological Awareness on the Acquisition of English L2 Phonology Among Primary Students in Hong Kong written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book On the Effect of Cantonese L1 Phonological Awareness on the Acquisition of English L2 Phonology Among Primary Students in Hong Kong written by Lau-luk Yeung (Margery) and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Dissertation Abstracts International written by and published by . This book was released on 2009-04 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reading Acquisition of Chinese as a Second Foreign Language Volume II written by Linjun Zhang and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-10-26 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Teaching English Reading in the Chinese Speaking World written by Clay Williams and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-07 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates inherent, structural differences in the Chinese and English writing systems which predispose learners from childhood to develop specific literacy-learning strategies, which can impair later efforts at learning foreign language literacy if the foreign language script varies significantly from the native language script. It compares educational practices and philosophies in Chinese and English-speaking classrooms, and examines the psychological underpinnings of these literacy learning strategies. This book presents psychometric testing of adult reading strategy defaults and examines case study data, revealing that Chinese students are susceptible to misapplying Chinese character-level processing strategies to English word identification tasks, which decreases reading efficiency, and ultimately can lead to learning failure. Finally, a new educational framework is proposed for teaching beginning language-specific word identification and literacy-learning skills to learners whose first language script varies significantly from that of the target language.

Download or read book Teaching Chinese Language in the International School Context written by Jia-Fei Hong and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2024-01-11 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the learning and teaching of K-12 Chinese language in international schools. The authors of this book are scholars from teaching training institutions and universities, as well as professional frontline teachers. With a combination of the works and insights from both perspectives of theory and practice, the book presents how theories of teaching can be operated in classroom to improve the effectiveness of language teaching. It covers curriculum setting, design of teaching materials, teaching principles, methods, strategies, and evaluation. The book also discusses issues and concepts such as concept-driven learning, identity change and recognition of L1 and L2 Chinese teacher, pinyin teaching, Chinese character teaching, evaluation for learning improvement, and integration of South Asian non-Chinese speaking students into local schools. It emphasizes empirical action research methods. This is a highly informative and carefully presented book, providing high value insights to scholars from university and teacher training institutions and teachers from kindergartens, primary, and secondary schools around the world.

Download or read book Cantonese as a Second Language written by John C. Wakefield and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cantonese is a language from southern China that is spoken by roughly 70 million people worldwide. It is the language of Hong Kong cinema and has traditionally been the most prominent language spoken in Chinatowns around the world. People choose to learn Cantonese for a variety of social and economic reasons: because it is a heritage language that one’s relatives speak; because it is the language of one’s partner and monolingual in-laws; because it is necessary for living and working in Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, or other Cantonese-speaking communities; because it is the bridge to fully appreciating and understanding Cantonese culture; or simply because it is an irresistible challenge. Whatever the motivation, more and more people are choosing to learn Cantonese as an additional language. This book discusses many issues related to both acquiring and teaching Cantonese. If you are a learner of Cantonese, this long overdue volume is essential to understanding both the grammatical and the social issues involved with learning this notoriously difficult language. If you are a teacher, this book will be invaluable to gaining insight into your students’ motivations and needs. And finally, if you are an applied linguist, the unique aspects related to the acquisition of Cantonese offer a fascinating contribution to the literature.

Download or read book The Effect of Phonological Awareness on Learning English as a Second Language written by Man-Ching Vanessa Wong and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "The Effect of Phonological Awareness on Learning English as a Second Language: a Study With Korean and Chinese Subjects" by Man-ching, Vanessa, Wong, 黃玟靜, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of dissertation entitled "The Effect of Phonological Awareness on Learning English as a Second Language: A Study with Korean and Chinese Subjects." Submitted by Wong Man Ching Vanessa for the degree of Master of Arts at The University of Hong Kong in June 2006 The effect of phonological awareness on learning English as a second language from Korean and Chinese was investigated in this study. Three Korean-English bilingual children and three Chinese children whose first language (L1) is Cantonese were tested in second-language (L2; English) phonological skills focusing on phonological processing. It is found that phonological skills in L1 and L2 were strongly correlated, and phonological skill in both LI and L2 was correlated with L2 reading and contributed a unique variance to L2 reading, even though the children's LI was not written in an alphabetic orthography, whereas the 2nd language had an alphabetic orthography. This research adds to a growing body of evidence for cross-language transfer of phonological processing in L2 learning of English-as-a-Second-Language students. DOI: 10.5353/th_b3871083 Subjects: English language - Phonology English language - Study and teaching - Korean speakers English language - Study and teaching - Cantonese speakers

Download or read book The Acquisition of English Grammar and Phonology by Cantonese ESL Learners written by Alice Yin Wa Chan and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-12-30 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chan’s exploration of the acquisition of English grammar and phonology by Cantonese learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) offers insights into the specific challenges that learners often encounter and posits ways to help them overcome those challenges. Possible sources of the challenges are also examined. The book covers the basic differences between English and Cantonese grammar as well as those between English and Cantonese phonology. Chan discusses the kinds of grammatical and phonological problems that Cantonese ESL learners often have in their acquisition of English. In terms of grammar, various structures are reviewed, including errors which are clearly due to L1 interference and also those which may not be directly L1-related. Learners’ common misconceptions about relevant concepts are also revealed. In terms of phonology, both speech perception and speech production problems at the segmental and suprasegmental levels are examined. For learner problems which may be the result of L1 interference, a contrastive approach is adopted in analysing the cause and nature of the errors. Chan also offers readers pedagogical insights to target common grammatical problems, including the use of an algorithmic approach, the use of a discovery-based consciousness-raising approach and the use of metalinguistic explanations. As far as the learning of English phonology is concerned, she argues that the training of speech production should go hand-in-hand with that of speech perception. Future research can experiment with the proposed teaching ideas with Cantonese ESL learners and learners of other native languages. Researchers and ESL teaching professionals will find the insights and research contained within this volume invaluable when encountering or researching Chinese ESL learners.

Download or read book Phonological Awareness in Cantonese ESL Students written by and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Lexical Tone Perception in Infants and Young Children Empirical studies and theoretical perspectives written by Leher Singh and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2019-11-20 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In psycholinguistic research there has traditionally been a strong emphasis on understanding how particular language types of are processed and learned . In particular, Romance and Germanic languages (e.g. English, French, German) have, until recently, received more attention than other types, such as Chinese languages. This has led to selective emphasis on the phonological building blocks of European languages, consonants and vowels, to the exclusion of lexical tones which, like consonants and vowels, determine lexical meaning, but unlike consonants and vowels are based on pitch variations. Lexical tone is pervasive; it is used in at least half of the world’ languages (Maddieson, 2013), e.g., most Asian and some African, Central American, and European languages. This Research Topic brings together a collection of recent empirical research on the processing and representation of lexical tones across the lifespan with an emphasis on advancing knowledge on how tone systems are acquired. The articles focus on various aspects of tone: early perception of tones, influences of tone on word learning, the acquisition of new tone systems, and production of tones. One set of articles report on tone perception at the earliest stage of development, in infants learning either tone or non-tone languages. Tsao and Chen et al. demonstrate that infants’ sensitivity to Mandarin lexical tones, as well as pitch, improves over the first year of life in native and non-native learners in contrast to traditional accounts of perceptual narrowing for consonants and vowels. Götz et al. report a different pattern of perception for Cantonese tones and further demonstrate influences of methodological approaches on infants’ tone sensitivity. Fan et al. demonstrate that sensitivity to less well-studied properties of tone languages, such as neutral tone, may develop after the first year of life. Cheng and Lee ask a similar question in an electrophysiological study and report effects of stimulus salience on infants’ neural response to native tones. In a complementary set of studies focused on tone sensitivity in word learning, Burnham et al. demonstrate that infants bind tones to newly-learned words if they are learning a tone language, either monolingually or bilingually; although it was also found that object-word binding was influenced by the properties of individual tones. Liu and Kager chart a developmental trajectory over the second year of life in which infants narrow in their interpretation of non-native tones. Choi et al. investigate how learning a tone language can influence uptake of other suprasegmental properties of language, such as stress, and demonstrate that native tone sensitivity in children can facilitate stress sensitivity when learning a stress-based language. Finally, two studies focus on sensitivity to pitch in a sub-class tone languages: pitch accent languages. In a study on Japanese children’s abilities to recognise words they know, Ota et al. demonstrate a limited sensitivity to native pitch contrasts in toddlers. In contrast, Ramachers et al. demonstrate comparatively strong sensitivity to pitch in native and non-native speakers of a different pitch accent system (Limburghian) when learning new words. Several studies focus on learning new tone systems. In a training study with school-aged children, Kasisopa et al. demonstrate that tone language experience increases children’s abilities to learn new tone contrasts. Poltrock et al. demonstrate similar advantages of tone experience in learning new tone systems in adults. And in an elecrophysiological study, Liu et al. demonstrate order effects in adults’ neural responses to new tones, discussing implications for learning tone languages as an adult. Finally, Hannah et al. demonstrate that extralinguistic cues, such as facial expression, can support adults’ learning of new tone systems. In three studies investigating tone production, Rattansone et al. report the results of a study demonstrating kindergartners’ asynchronous mastery of tones – delayed acquisition of tone sandhi forms relative to base forms. In a study interrogating a corpus of adult tone production, Han et al. demonstrate that mothers produce tones in a distinct manner when speaking to infants; tone differences are emphasised more when speaking to infants than to adults. Combining perception and production of tones, Wong et al. report asynchronous development of tone perception and tone production in children. The Research Topic also includes a series of Opinion pieces and Commentaries addressing the broader relevance of tone and pitch to the study of language acquisition. Curtin and Werker discuss ways in which tone can be integrated into their model of infant language development (PRIMIR). Best discusses the phonological status of lexical tones and considers how recent empirical research on tone perception bears on this question. Kager focuses on how language learners distinguish lexical tones from other sources of pitch variation (e.g., affective and pragmatic) that also inform language comprehension. Finally, Antoniou and Chin unite evidence of tone sensitivity from children and adults and discuss how these areas of research can be mutually informative. Psycholinguistic studies of lexical tone acquisition have burgeoned over the past 13 years. This collection of empirical studies and opinion pieces provides a state-of-the-art panoply of the psycholinguistic study of lexical tones, and demonstrate its coming of age. The articles in this Research Topic will help address the hitherto Eurocentric non-tone language research emphasis, and will contribute to an expanding narrative of speech perception, speech production, and language acquisition that includes all of the world’s languages. Importantly, these studies underline the scientific promise of drawing from tone languages in psycholinguistic research; the research questions raised by lexical tone are unique and distinct from those typically applied to more widely studied languages and populations. The comprehensive study of language acquisition can only benefit from this expanded focus.

Download or read book The Role of Phonological Awareness in Native and Second Language Reading Development written by Miu-Ying Li and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "The Role of Phonological Awareness in Native and Second Language Reading Development" by Miu-ying, Li, 李妙英, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of dissertation entitled "The Role of Phonological Awareness in Native and Second Language Reading Development" Submitted by Li Miu Ying, Miriam for the degree of Master of Arts at The University of Hong Kong in June 2006 In recent years, there has been a great deal of work devoted to the study of component skills that are necessary to sustain a success in reading English and Chinese. Phonological awareness is found to be a critical component of reading development. This study examined the role of phonological awareness in second language reading st th development. The subjects were 20 1 and 4 graders in Hong Kong, whose native spoken language is Cantonese. Children's performance on both English and Chinese reading ability and phonological awareness were examined. Results of hierarchical regression analyses and Pearson correlations showed that (a) phonological awareness at onset-rime level predicts English reading success at lower grade; (b) phonological awareness at phoneme level predicts English reading success at higher grade; (c) onset-rime and phonemic awareness both predict Chinese reading in grade 1; (d) phonemic awareness better predicts Chinese reading than onset-rime awareness in grade 4. The results support the notion that individual differences in alphabetic reading ability are accounted for by variances in phonological processing abilities, and that awareness of larger sound units (onset-rime) plays a more important role in earlier stage and awareness of smaller sound units (phoneme) in later stage. In contrast, the current study reported that onset-rime awareness does not play a more significant role in Chinese reading than phonemic awareness, which is inconsistent with that reported in Siok and Fletcher's (2001) study. This finding was taken to suggest that there is cross language transfer of metalinguistic skills in Hong Kong Chinese-English bilingual children. DOI: 10.5353/th_b3686349 Subjects: Reading (Elementary) - China - Hong Kong English language - Phonology Language awareness Second language acquisition School children - China - Hong Kong - Language

Download or read book The Effect of Phonological Input on L2 Reading Comprehension written by CHI-KIN WILSON. LO and published by . This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "The Effect of Phonological Input on L2 Reading Comprehension" by Chi-kin, Wilson, Lo, 盧智健, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract "The Effect of Phonological Input on L2 Reading Comprehension" Submitted by LO, Chi Kin Wilson for the degree of Master of Arts at The University of Hong Kong. in March 2004 This study aims to analyse the effect of speech alone, orthography alone & speech and orthography on L2 comprehension and attempts to explore whether using two types of input (orthographic + phonological) enhance performance of L2 comprehension. In addition, it tries to examine the relationships amongst the reading ability and the comprehension performance using the three modes of input. The study recruited 15 Form 5 participants and 15 Form 6 participants at a typical local CMI school in order to help them to find a way to perform better in reading comprehension and listening tasks. The results show that the augmentation of the phonological input helps improve reading comprehension ability. DOI: 10.5353/th_b2951952 Subjects: English language - Orthography and spelling Reading (Secondary) - China - Hong Kong English language - Phonology Second language acquisition - China - Hong Kong High school students - China - Hong Kong - Language Secondary students - Language

Download or read book The Effects of Phonics Teaching on Hong Kong Children s English Reading Development written by Kin-Wai Chim and published by . This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "The Effects of Phonics Teaching on Hong Kong Children's English Reading Development" by Kin-wai, Chim, 詹建慧, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled The Effects of Phonics Teaching on Hong Kong Children's English Reading Development Submitted by Chim Kin Wai for the degree of Master of Arts at The University of Hong Kong in August 2007 This study examined the effects of phonics instruction on English reading performance of Hong Kong children who study Chinese as the first language and English as the second language. Twenty Hong Kong Primary 5 students, ten with high English ability and ten with low English ability, were recruited for this study. They were trained on phoneme counting and blending skills explicitly over 12 weeks. Phonological awareness which were at the onset-rime level and the phonemic level and English word reading ability were measured before and after instructional process. The findings showed that training could enhance phonological awareness of both groups of students. Compared to the high ability group, the low ability group demonstrated a greater gain in phonological skills. An improvement in English word recognition due to the improved phoneme deletion skills was also observed in the low ability group but not in the high ability group. Results of multiple regression analysis revealed that, pre- and post-training rhyme-alliteration oddity and pre-training phoneme deletion correlated significantly with post-training word reading for both ability groups. Performance change in phoneme deletion was found to be significantly correlated with performance change in English word cognition, suggesting that improving children's phonological sensitivity at the phoneme level can further enhance children's English reading ability. The implications of the findings will be discussed. (216 words) DOI: 10.5353/th_b3867041 Subjects: English language - Phonetics - Study and teaching (Elementary) - China - Hong Kong Reading (Elementary) - China - Hong Kong

Download or read book RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHONOLOGI written by 勞皓珍 and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "The Relationship Between Phonological Awareness and Reading Ability" by 勞皓珍, Ho-chun, Rebecca, Lo, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract "The Relationship Between Phonological Awareness and Reading Ability" Submitted by Lo Ho Chun Rebecca for the degree of Master of Arts at The University of Hong Kong. in June 2003 The present study focuses on the role of phonological awareness in second language reading. Forty-one Grade 8 Hong Kong students participated in the study. They were all native speakers of Cantonese. Three types of standardised reading measures were used as criterion variables: Word Reading subtest of WRAT-3, Word Identification and Word Attack subtests of WRMT-R. A comprehensive battery of tests including both phonological processing and visual processing skills was administered. Data were analysed using Pearson correlations and hierarchical multiple regression. Phonological awareness tasks were found to be more strongly related to reading ability. The study suggests that phoneme deletion, among other tasks, proved to be the most powerful predictor of reading ability. In contrast, visual processing was not significantly correlated with any of the reading measures. It was reported that this study replicated the findings of other L1 reading research in the same area. The results supported the notion that individual differences in reading ability are caused by variation in phonological processing abilities. Early intervention may be required once the students are identified as deficient in phonological awareness. It is finally suggested that more explicit instruction/training in phonological awareness is necessary so that a phonological route is available to students when they encounter new words. DOI: 10.5353/th_b2682274 Subjects: Second language acquisition Grammar, Comparative and general - Phonology Reading - Phonetic method - China - Hong Kong English language - Study and teaching - China - Hong Kong

Download or read book Acquisition of Subject Verb Agreement in Pre Pubertal Cantonese Students in Hong Kong written by Jeffrey Thomas Beer and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "Acquisition of Subject-verb Agreement in Pre-pubertal Cantonese Students in Hong Kong" by Jeffrey Thomas, Beer, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Language is probably the greatest thing developed by mankind. Yet few have come to understand how it is acquired. I am one of them. I want to understand how it is acquired, and how students come to understand the important area of subject-verb agreement. The purpose of the research was to gain an understanding of local students whose mother tongue is Cantonese (L1), and what are the factors affecting their acquisition of subject-verb agreement in English. To a lesser degree, it is aimed at gaining an understanding of how language is acquired; to gain an understanding on how second language is acquired; and to gain an understanding of how grammar is acquired. The research was carried out as the author wanted to see if there was a reason why students could not understand subject-verb agreement in English. The author wanted to look at four main reasons. These included biological reasons, physiological reasons, developmental reason, and cultural reason. The research was conducted on children aged six to twelve from two main school streams (public and private) using a quantitative and qualitative survey. The quantitative survey included fifteen missing words, twenty statements, and five sentences to see if students could recognise if the statements were ungrammatical or grammatical. The qualitative survey was conducted with a group of primary four students (aged nine to ten) to gain an understanding of why certain answers were selected and what was the reasoning behind the decisions the participants made. From the researcher, it was discovered there was some level of first language interference, though to the exact degree it was questionable as it could not be determined quantifiably. It was evident from the YoE data that students new to English had the highest number of errors. It was also found that there was no absolute or definitive time or age when subject-verb agreement was evident. However, there was a sharp decrease in the number of errors at both schools at the age of eight. The results also show that culture does influence the learning of English as a second language in Hong Kong. It is not just because Cantonese has no Subject-verb agreement; it also extends to the teaching practices in the classroom and the culture of teaching through grammar. The problems this created became evident in the research. DOI: 10.5353/th_b5017525 Subjects: English language - Study and teaching - Cantonese speakers English language - Study and teaching (Primary) - China - Hong Kong Second language acquisition