10 different ways to learn Chinese characters
Summary
There are more than 3500 frequently used Chinese characters (Zhang, 1997). Learning has always been considered as a challenge not only for non-Chinese-speaking background (NCSB) students but also for native speakers of Chinese to start your first language acquisition. This article summarizes 10 different ways of learning characters is practiced in the field of teaching Chinese as a foreign or second language. It is expected that students of the NCBs can benefit from them by putting them into practice.
Key words: Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language or Second, learning Chinese characters, language games
1. The sequential approach Radical and Stroke
The traditional way of teaching of Chinese characters is to direct students' attention to the radicals of the structure that each character. This is followed by an illustration of the commands of movement the character. Pinyin Romanization and English are listed along with the characters, then students are asked to pronounce the characters or add Romanization Pinyin characters in the list. The traditional sequential approach to radical or stroke the characters still alive in the field of teaching Chinese to foreign students and the best examples can be found in textbooks by Lu (2001), Liu, et al. (2002), Zhang, et al. (2004) and Ma (2005).
2. The systematic approach
The most common practice in teaching Chinese characters to foreign students are taught how the pronunciation and meaning a character's first, continued to demonstrate his command stroke. However, this makes learning foreign characters difficult students (Zhang, 1997), unlike those based on alphabetic language, Chinese writing is ideographic system which integrates the form, pronunciation and the meaning of a character, therefore, there is a need to separate the reading of the characters in writing. Zhang (1997) advocates a focus on character education follows a systematic method of learning the basic strokes and stroke order of characters first single and composite characters. The idea this approach to the teaching of character is expressed in the rudiments of the book's writing Chinese characters (Zhang, 1997).
3. The approach of writing OVAL
OVAL Writing is an innovative method for learning Chinese characters. It is specially designed for non Chinese-speaking-background (NCSB) pupils, NCSB allows beginners to accelerate their learning curve and fast track their mastery of Chinese characters (Ren, 2004a). The 5-letter acronym for Observation Visualization, articulation, listening and writing respectively. This approach intends to combine the visual learner, auditory and kinesthetic senses together in order to retain character is far from the traditional approach of learning the characters is the character recognition memory (Ren, 2004b).
4. The perception Integrative Approach
This approach is based on the theory developed by Marton and Booth phenomenographic (1997). Required learning Chinese characters closely associated with the use of language learning and experience. Characters are taught in groups rather than separately. Teachers use similarities and differences among related characters in the groups to highlight and emphasize key aspects of Chinese characters, such as their characteristics Structural written form and pronunciation (Tse et al., 2006).
5. Reading History Approach
Unlike most writers textbook focuses on the learning of modern Chinese characters, Wang and Gao (2003) focus on the Chinese character phrases come from old classic Chinese stories. They select stories from classic literature and the title of the stories with the key character phrases originated from these stories. They also add photos to these stories to help students understand each story contains and the title of the story. This will not only help students master key character phrases, but also know the origin of these characters and the stories behind these phrases.
6. The focus of the game
This is a very popular way to teach foreign students of China characters. This approach centers the entire class in learning the characters by playing various games as crossword puzzles (Yan and Fu, 2005), passing the message, the TV game of 20 questions (Yao and McGinnis, 1989) or use of cards to identify the characters Chinese (Fuary and Kessler, 2006).
7. The image matching approach
This is dominated by a visual approach where students are exposed several pictures with characters appearing opposite. You can play cards image (Guan, 1996) or set of image sets (Li and Xie, 2002) where students were asked to identify the characters by comparing with the pictures or numbers on the image. The pronunciation of the characters is done while the majority of treated comprehensive approach dominant image is covered in the textbook in two volumes entitled Chinese Characters in Pictures by Wang and Zheng (2005) in which approximately 200 characters explained in the images. In this approach, the movement commands of the characters are listed first followed by the Pinyin romanization and the meaning of the characters in English. Very often the images contain extended characters with examples how these characters can be used within a sentence.
8. The focus of the computer keyboard
Chinese HaFaLa animation software is a quick learning (8 CD-ROM), developed by Shanghai Animation Taotu Technology Co. Ltd. works on any computer provide users the opportunity to learn Chinese characters. This software consists of individual characters most frequently used search by hitting the movement orders, the Pinyin romanization and English meanings. Can be used as a dictionary to help students in learning Chinese printed textbooks.
9. The focus of Nintendo DS
Chinese Expert My Nintendo DS allows users to learn Chinese characters by playing games on the Nintendo DS. Different games, such as Hit-a-word multiple choice, Whack-a-Mole, Tone-recognition to provide students various opportunities to learn different aspects of characters ranging from learning against traditional forms simplified characters, pronunciation, meaning in English, pinyin romanization, English to Chinese or vice versa. Students can also write characters on the orders of proper movement in the software are presented. Couple with one bilingual dictionary, this application can be used as a practical tool for learning Chinese characters.
10. The focus of the iPhone
The latest iPhone application offers a lucky grasshopper fun way to learn Chinese characters. This application uses pictures, sounds and animations to teach users to the movement commands, the pronunciation and meaning of the characters, allowing them to dominate the characters by touching the screen. You can also tap directly students to different characters of your choice one at a time. This may be one of the most portable of learning Chinese characters. To see a demonstration online shortly, will http://www.luckygrasshopper.com/ by LuckyG media and Lucky Grasshopper (2009).
References
Fuary, M. and Kessler, D. (2006). Chinese Games. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation.
J. Guan (1996). Cards China's image. Honolulu: The Bess Press.
Li, D. and Xie, Y. (2002). Chinese vocabulary. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Liu, X. Zhang, K. Liu, S., Chen, X., Zuo, S. Shi, J. (2002). New Reader Chinese practice (Vol.1). Beijing: Beijing Language and Culture University Press.
Lu, B. (2001). China Panorama Chinese approach (Vols.1-3). Beijing Language and Culture Press.
Ma, Y. (2005). China Made Easy (Vol.1). Joint Publication (HK) Co. Ltd.
Marton, F. and Booth, S. (1997). Learning and knowledge, Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.
Ren, G. (2004a). OVAL writing in Chinese. Melbourne: Camberwell Grammar School.
Ren, G. (2004b). Introduction of OVAL writing, a new approach to the retention of Chinese characters NCSB secondary students. Babel 39, 1, 40-10, 37-38.
Ren, X. and Xu, J. (2004). Wise Chinese (Vols.1-3). Beijing: Beijing University Press.
Tse, SK, Marton, F., Ki, WW and Loh, EKY (2006). An integrated approach to perception for teaching Chinese characters. Instruction Science, 35, 5, 375-406.
Wang, J. and Gao, G. (2003). 100 and 100 characters Phrases Stories (Vols.1-2). Shanghai: China Publishing House dictionary.
Wang, C Zheng, CQ (2005). The Chinese characters in pictures. Beijing: Sinolingua.
Yan, T. and Fu, Y. (2005). Chinese Puzzles: For speakers of Chinese as a language Foreign Language. London: Cypress Book Co. UK Ltd.
Yao, TC and McGrinnis, S. (1989). Let's play the games in China. Illinois: NTC Publishing Group.
Zhang, J., Liang, Y. and Zhang, L. (2004). Course of Chinese characters. Beijing: Beijing Language University Press.
Zhang, P. (1997). Rudiments of writing characters Chinese. Beijing: Beijing University Press.
About the Author
Dr Guanxin Ren teaches Chinese at Ruyton Girls’ School in Melbourne. He can be contacted at reng@ruyton.vic.edu.au. For his other refereed articles on Chinese language teaching, see Babel, 43,3, 2009; Babel, 42,2, 2007; NZALT Conference Proceedings (Refereed Section) 2006; Babel, 39, 1, 2004; Languages Victoria, 8, 1, 2004; and Babel, 37.3, 2003.