A Study On Methods Of Teaching Chinese Characters And Vocabulary To Vietnamese Learners

Chinese characters are convergence of the thousand-year culture and history of China. In the development, since the time of early character-formation, Chinese characters have reflected the aspiration and the real life of Chinese people. However, foreign learners of the Chinese language themselves always consider Chinese characters the biggest obstacle and so do Vietnamese learners. In comparison with the learners coming from European and American countries, Vietnamese learners enjoy certain favorable advantages. It is because Vietnam is one of the countries profoundly influenced by Chinese culture, because there are a great number of loanwords from the Chinese language in Vietnamese vocabulary and it is also because Vietnam has a 2,000-year history of teaching, and using Chinese characters (also previously known as Han ideograms). Up to now, there has not been any thesis studying the methods teaching Chinese characters and vocabulary to Vietnamese learners. Therefore, I myself wish to study the issue.My thesis has the following contents:Brief study on the history of teaching and learning Chinese characters or Han ideograms in Vietnam; the role of Sino-Vietnamese words in Vietnamese vocabulary. After studying such issues as teaching conceptions, teaching hours and teaching methods, the author also discusses the teaching and learning Chinese in Vietnam and the limitations as well as the shortcomings. Chapter four, the most important chapter of the thesis, is divided into parts. The former deals with the influence of Sino-Vietnamese words on the Vietnamese learners of the Chinese language, with advantages and disadvantages of Sino-Vietnamese words in teaching Chinese vocabulary as well as the ways of overcoming influence of Sino-Vietnamese words on Vietnamese learners. The latter represents ideas and methods of teaching Chinese characters and vocabulary to learners at elementary, intermediate and advanced levels.At the elementary level, what we have to do at this level is mainly to help learners master the patterns, the structures and orders of Chinese characters. It is also necessary to drill writing patterns and structures of Chinese characters. In classroom, films and videos representing the development of Chinese characters can also be used; in addition, game activities about Chinese characters may also be carried out to further improve learning motives for the learners.At the intermediate level, what we have to do is to increase and expand the learners' vocabulary. Thoroughly taking advantage of the method of reasoning main patterns in Chinese characters as well as Sino-Vietnamese words in word formations are some of the ways of enriching vocabulary for the learners.At the advanced level:The main task of teaching at the level is the further understand the meanings of Chinese characters. It is necessary to take advantage of learners'knowledge about the meanings of Sino-Vietnamese words of Vietnamese learners to reason and further understand the meanings of Chinese idioms, proverbs, poems, etc.