The present study seeks to explore a model of learning Chinese tone variations, which are considered most, among others, intriguing and challenging for CFL (Chinese as Foreign language) learners. The model has been developed on the bases of learning principles in learning psychology (e.g., Ausubel's subsumption principle). Ausubel contends that learning is a process that creates or consolidates the relations between new material and cognitive structure. The present study also seeks to answer

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... question: How can morphemes and phonemes of Chines lexicons or sentences be integrated so that CFL learners comprehend and catch the tone variations of the target words/sentences? The present model borrows ideas from keyword method, developed to help American students learn Spanish vocabulary. However keyword method was mainly adopted to create semantic and morphemic relationships on a single lexicon, having little to do with the connection between phonemic and morphemic aspects of a word, which also serves as one of the purposes of the present study to uncover the relationships in between.