Foreign Language Annals

Previous studies suggest that writing helps reading development in Chinese in both first and second language settings by enabling higher‐quality orthographic representation of the characters. This study investigated the comparative effectiveness of reading, animation, and writing in developing foreign language learners' orthographic knowledge of Chinese and found that, for learners with existing orthographic knowledge, the three learning conditions facilitated character learning in different ways: Writing and animation both led to better form recognition, while reading produced superior meaning and sound recalls. In addition, the effect of animation in meaning recall was also better than writing. In developing the skill of reproducing characters from memory, writing was superior. Implications for the teaching and learning of Chinese characters are offered.

Active learning emerged as a new approach to learning in the 1980s. The core concept of active learning involves engaging students not only in actively exploring knowledge but also in reflecting on their own learning process in order to become more effective learners. Because the nonalphabetic nature of the Chinese writing system makes learning to read and write Chinese characters extremely time‐consuming for native English speakers, this qualitative study was intended to identify instructional strategies, methods, and activities for promoting active learning among beginning learners of Chinese as a second language and to investigate students' perceptions of the identified strategies, methods, and activities with regard to their effectiveness in engaging students in meaningful learning.

Learning and retaining Chinese characters are often considered to be the most challenging elements in learning Chinese as a foreign language. Applying the theory of meaningful interpretation, the chunking mnemonic technique, and the linguistic features of Chinese characters, this study examines whether the method of meaningful interpretation and chunking (MIC) can promote learners' immediate learning and retention of Chinese characters. Mandarin Chinese learners at two high schools were randomized into a treatment group and a control group. Students in the treatment group learned Chinese characters with the MIC method, whereas their peers in the control group learned characters by the traditional method of rote repetition according to the stroke order. Four balanced character sets were introduced each day for four continuous days with three different interventions: teacher‐instructed method on Day 1, teacher‐cued method on Day 2, and students' independent work on Day 3 and Day 4. Students' learning outcomes of the characters were measured with (1) immediate quizzes given each day after instruction, (2) a retention test (after one week) that integrated all the immediate quizzes, and (3) an application test administered two months after the experiment. The findings suggest that MIC enhances learners' immediate learning and retention of Chinese characters. In addition, the teacher‐cued method and familiar independent work were more effective for learning and retaining Chinese characters than the teacher‐instructed method and unfamiliar independent work. Furthermore, the treatment effect also varied across the measurement components (meaning vs. perception), levels of instruction, and heritage versus non‐heritage groups.

The study explored when characters were introduced as part of first‐year Chinese as a foreign language courses as well as students' and instructors' beliefs and rationales within the context of postsecondary programs in the United States. Data were collected through a large‐scale online survey of 914 students and 192 instructors. Results indicated that the majority of Chinese programs did not delay teaching characters. Most instructors and students believed that the best time point to introduce characters was near the beginning of the first semester. However, after they were presented with reasons for and against delaying the introduction of characters, both instructors and students showed a significant increase in support for delaying character introduction. Native and nonnative Chinese instructors expressed similar preferences for an ideal time point to teach Chinese characters, but students at different instructional levels expressed significantly different beliefs regarding the ideal time point at which to begin learning Chinese characters.