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Teaching Chinese Writing System in Web- based Education

Man Gao, Lung-Lung Hu, Jia Yan , Tao Yang. Teaching Chinese Writing System in Web- based Education. Challenges of teaching Chinese characters.

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Teaching Chinese Writing System in Web- based Education

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  1. Man Gao, Lung-Lung Hu, Jia Yan , Tao Yang TeachingChinese Writing System in Web-basedEducation

  2. Challenges ofteachingChinesecharacters • Oneof the biggestchallenges for the Westerners tolearnChinese is the Chinesewriting system. For everyindividualcharacter, students needtolearnitsmeaning and sound separately, as well as rememberitsstructure, composition (various strokes) and produce it in writing.

  3. Challenges ofteachingChinesecharacters 2. In the Chinesedistancecourses at Högskolan Dalarna, ourteacherscanonlydemonstratehowtowritecharactersand givefeedbacks toour students by using a mousetodraw on the whiteboard. Needlesstosay, drawingwith a mouse is largelydifferent from writingwith a marker pen or a chalk. by mouse by pen

  4. Challenges ofteachingChinesecharacters 3. To find an efficient and effective method of teaching Chinese characters to students who study Chinese as a foreign language as adultand through web-based courses has become a big issue.

  5. Whatdidwe do? Wedid an research by the support of NGL-center of Dalarna University to face thesechallenges. Our research includedthree parts: • A student survey tocollect the students’ opinion • Equipment test ofsomepossiblecomplementaryequipment • Seeking research contribution from other researchers to the similartopic

  6. Student survey

  7. Student survey The purposeof the student surveyis togather students’ opinion on teaching and learningChinesecharacters in a web-basedteachingenvironment. The questionnaire instrument is chosen. • The questionnaire is designed as an online questionnaire, and was sent to 329 students. • The samplearethose students whoaretaking or have taken ourChinesecharactercourses • We got 65 returnedquestionnaires, with an answer rate ofapproximately 20%.

  8. Student survey Questionnaire design: • Backgroundquestions • Main bodyquestions(7-Likert scale, with 1: stronglyagree and 7: stronglydisagree) • their opinion about the importanceofwritingChinesecharacters in online classroom • Their opinion about the effectivenessofour online classroom in terms ofteachingChinesecharacters • Their opinion aboutteachingmethods in terms ofteachingChinesecharacters in web-basedteachingenvironment • Open-end questions • The mostdifficult part whenlearningChinesecharacters • The mostimportantthing in terms oflearningChinesecharacters • suggestions

  9. Student survey findings The answersto the openquestion: Whatis the mostdifficult part withregardtolearningChinesecharacters? • To remember the characters • Theyaremany • Someofthemareverycomplex餐、嘱 • Difficulttoremeberthem for a long period oftime • To distinguish the differencesof the form-like characters (土 / 士； 尤/龙) • To match sound, meaning and written form of a character • To write a characterneatly

  10. Student survey findings The evaluation to: The importance of writing Chinese characters by hand. (7-Likert scale, with 1: stronglyagree and 7: stronglydisagree)

  11. Student survey findings The evaluation to: The importance of the teacher’s demonstration of writing Chinese characters stroke by stroke by hand in online classroom. (7-Likert scale, with 1: stronglyagree and 7: stronglydisagree)

  12. Student survey findings The evaluation to: The importance that the students are given opportunities to practise writing Chinese character by hand in online classroom. (7-Likert scale, with 1: stronglyagree and 7: stronglydisagree)

  13. Student survey findings The evaluation to: The effectiveness of the equipment in our online classroom with regard to writing Chinese characters by hand. (7-Likert scale, with 1: stronglyagree and 7: stronglydisagree)

  14. Student survey findings Age group distribution of the statement: Whetherusingpictureshelps the studnetsrecognize the Characters in written form? (7-Likert scale, with 1: stronglyagree and 7: stronglydisagree)

  15. Student survey findings Age group distribution of the statement: Whetherusingvedio films helps the studnetsrecognize the Characters in written form? (7-Likert scale, with 1: stronglyagree and 7: stronglydisagree)

  16. Student survey findings Age group distribution of the statement: Whetherwrittenassignmentshelp the studnetsrecognize the Characters in written form? (7-Likert scale, with 1: stronglyagree and 7: stronglydisagree)

  17. Main findings from the student survey • It is veryimportantthat the students learntowrite the Chinesecharacters by hand, thus: • It is veryimportantthat the teachersdemonstratehowtowrite a Chinesecharacter by hand during online class-roomteaching. • Pictures and videos areveryhelpful in learningChinesecharacters, however, different age groupshavediffered opinions, younger students valuethesemethodsmore. • The traditionalwrittenassignmentsofhandwritingpractices is regarded as a veryeffectivewaytorecognize and remember the characters. Again, different age groupshavediffered opinions, older students valuethismethodmore. • The explanationof the origin and developmentof the characters under time is alsoprovedto be a goodwayofhelping the students torecognize and rememberthem.

  18. Equipment test Writing pad & Camera

  19. Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch 460 Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch 670

  20. Written with mouse Written with writing pad

  21. Written with writing pad Written with mouse

  22. Students evaluationof the testedequipment Aftertestingofeachequipment, wegave students a questionnairetoletthemevaluate the teachingresult. The nextslide is an exampleof the summaryof students’ respondents tosuch a questinnair.

  23. Equipment test Wefound the testedwritingpad is alsogood at helping the teacherstocorrect the students’ handwritingassignments, whichareusuallyhanded in as pdf-files or jpg-files.

  24. Theoretical support Visual cognition in online teaching

  25. Basic knowledge of Chinese characters One Chinese character has three basic elements: semantic radical, phonetic radical, and non-semantic or non-phonetic element. Ex: 河 (river) Singular-character: as a semantic-radical or as a picture, with self-sufficient meaning and sound. Ex: 口 (mouth) Multi (or compound)-character: can be dissected to semantic and phonetic radicals, which possibly can be taken disassembled also.淅 （clear）=水 + 析 （= 木 + 斤）

  26. 1. Strategies on Chinese character learning Non-Chinese native speakers uses many strategies to memorize Chinese characters, one of these strategies is to memorize Chinese characters according to their shapes and radicals. (Visual cognition)

  27. [T]he students (English-speaking first-year college students) used seven types of strategy. 1. Rote repetition. 2. Creation of their own idiosyncratic stories about the characters. 3. Use of orthographic knowledge (beginner)…. Most students considered knowledge of radicals more useful than creating their own stories. (McGinnis, 1999; Ke, 1998) Learning strategies among German-speaking college CFL learners at (all) levels… used 15 kinds of learning strategies…. 1. Repeated writing. 2. Using vocabulary cards (flash cards). 3. Decomposition of the compound characters into radicals or other components…. (Tseng, 2000) The results indicate that among the cognitive strategies, the learners considered orthographic-knowledge-based strategies (make use of the three aspects of radical knowledge, graphemics, semantics, and phonetics) to be most useful for leaning characters and this perception became stronger as the learning level increases. (60) “Shen, Helen H.. An investigation of Chinese-character learning strategies among non-native speakers of Chinese. System 33 (2005) 49-68”.

  28. 2. Visual Cognition and Chinese characters teaching 2.1. Where is it in our brains and its activation Different from alphabetic system based languages, mind is functioning differently when we read Chinese characters.

  29. More bilateral activation in the visual cortex has been shown for Chinese character reading, and some have suggested that this is due to the greater demands on visual-spatial analysis. The left middle frontal gyrus is often found activated in Chinese character reading, but rarely in alphabetic reading. (1865) “Yuan Deng, James R. Booth, Tai-Li Chou, Guo-Sheng Ding, Dan-Ling Peng (2007): Item-specific and generalization effects on brain activation when learning Chinese characters. Neuropsychologia 46 (2008) 1864-1876”.

  30. 2.2. The relation between Chinese characters and visual cognition For beginners, categorization of Chinese characters is based on their shapes, radicals, structures, strokes, and some special features. Categorization provides a mechanism for rapid information processing (e.g., Ingling, 1972)…. In this aspect, since Chinese is a logographic system, it may depend more on the visual/graphemic aspects than alphabetic system (Biederman & Tsao, 1979; Chen, Flores d’Arcais, & Cheung, 1995; Chen & Juola, 1982; Leck et al., 1995; Park & Arbuckle, 1977; Sasanuma, 1975; Wang, 1973) “Su-Ling Yeh, Jing-Ling Li, Tatsuto Takeuchi, Vincent Sun and Wen-Ren Liu (2003): The role of learning experience on the perceptual organization of Chinese characters, Visual Cognition, 10:6, 729-764”.

  31. 3. Radical based Chinese characters teaching 3.1. From characters to radicals Previous researchers thought that Chinese characters were recognized orthographically which means that Chinese characters in learning are holistic and inseparable units, and that semantic radicals contribute less than characters. But in ‘Laurie Beth Feldman and Witina W. T. Siok (1999): Semantic Radicals Contribute to the Visual Identification of Chinese Characters. Journal of Memory and Language 40, 559-576, it mentions that although the research in this article does not confirm that radical is more important than orthography, but it tells us that semantic radicals are equally important.

  32. The present study examines how Chinese characters are processed and organized in the mental lexicon and focuses on the processing of one type of character component, the semantic radical. (559) And also, in ‘Connie Suk-Han Ho, Wai-Ling Wong, and Wing-Sau Chan (1999): The use of orthographic analogies in learning to read Chinese. J. Child Psychol. Psychiat. Vol. 40, No. 3, 393-403’: making phonological and semantic analogies by radicals can help students to learn Chinese characters; and Chinese teachers also “should consider starting to teach the roles and functions of the phonetics and radicals” to help student using their ability of analogy.

  33. 4. Pedagogy in Chinese characters teaching • Teaching semantic and phonetic radicals • Collect Chinese characters that share the same semantic radical. Focus on the shape and meaning of radical and then the shape and meaning of character that can increase students’ visual cognition. • Collect Chinese characters that share the same phonetic radical. Focus on semantic phonetic compound Chinese characters, help students remember the pronunciation. • Collect “semi-regular” characters and phonetic families that contains partial information about the pronunciation and. (1, 2 and 3 can be proceeded altogether because one Chinese character is a unity which is composed of semantic and phonetic radicals) • Clarify the relation between semantic and phonetic radicals to prevent students from choosing the characters which have the correct sounds but wrong meanings. • Chinese characters “autopsy” practice: dissect one character into many elements. • Teaching exceptional radicals and characters.

  34. The shapes of Chinese characters • Collect Chinese characters with the same or similar shape, help students memorize. • Collect Chinese characters with different shape, help students distinguish. • Other possible ways of teaching • For helping student memorize, teachers can improvisationally interpret Chinese characters. • Orthography and rote repetition remained. • Apply traditional Chinese linguistics on teaching the pronunciations of Chinese characters. • Apply the advantage of e-learning on Chinese characters teaching.

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