A Research On How To Integrate Chinese Character Teaching Into Current Chinese Language Study In Thailand

Chinese character has a special standing in the Chinese teaching. This is because teaching Chinese as a second language involves spoken language and written language which naturally tied to Chinese writing system. In return, Chinese characters are used as the notation in Chinese writing. As a result, making a breakthrough in learning Chinese character is a crucial task in studying Chinese as a second language.Despite the universal phenomenon of the 'Chinese Hit', Chinese Teaching, however, is still lagging behind the current trend. The main problems are the lack of knowledge on the subject, the deficiency on the understanding regarding the nature and characteristic of Chinese Characters, and the inability to organize Chinese Teaching in a way that draws out the special quality of Chinese Character. As a result, Chinese character becomes the bottleneck in Chinese study for foreign students.This paper goes over the present condition of the research on teaching Chinese as a foreign language, particularly, the Chinese Teaching in Thailand. Based on previous research studies together with questionnaires and the data collecting from errors made by students in their exam papers, the author analyzes the cause behind mistakes students made in their exams as well as difficulties and problems they encountered.Starting from the uniqueness of Chinese character, this paper uses the language correlation and mistake analysis together with language acquisition concepts, in view of Thai students' cognition, memorization, and understanding of Chinese characters' special quality, puts forward the related strategy and methods in teaching Chinese as a foreign language in Thailand. In the hope that this paper will be able to play an integral part in developing the concept and method using Chinese character in Chinese Teaching.