Research On The Chinese Character Learning And Teaching Of The Monk And Nun Students In Shunhua Buddhist College Of Vietnam

Language is the carrier of the thoughts. The record, maintenance, communication and development of the language mainly depend on characters. As far as the above-mentioned definition is concerned, characters are the carrier of the thoughts as well, a vital tool for exchanging ideas among human beings. To use Chinese characters as symbols for writing is an indispensable tool. However, Chinese characters can become the stumbling block of Chinese learning. It is hard to overcome the difficulty toward many Chinese learners. To learn as well as write Chinese characters is difficult enough, let alone learn how to apply the meanings of the characters. During the practical learning process, most Buddhist monks and nuns①agree that learning Chinese characters is not so easy.②any monks and nuns regard learning Chinese characters as a terrifying job. Some even have psychological disorder before their learning. What's worse, some learners lack confidence in learning Chinese due to the fact that they cannot learn characters well. This result may exert negative influence on the learners'confidence.In Shunhua Buddhist College of Vietnam, compared with reading, listening and grammar, the teaching and learning of Chinese characters seems to be weak and lag behind. The main causes include:the language levels of the monk and nun students are not equal; students are of different ages:they are not familiar with the characteristics and features of Chinese characters; teachers fail to teach and organize the class based on the features of Chinese characters. These problems make learning Chinese characters a bottleneck for the monk and nun students from Shunhua Buddhist College of Vietnam. However, learning Chinese characters is a required course for the students. After learning Chinese for four years and graduating from the College, the monk and nun students are supposed to take the three major tasks. First, they are able to read Buddhist classics. Second, they have the ability to translate Chinese Buddhist classics into the Vietnamese language. Third, they can communicate well with monks and nuns from Taiwan and Mainland China. Without doubt, Chinese characters are the foundation for carrying out the above jobs. As a result, helping the monk and nun students of Shunhua Buddhist College of Vietnam learn Chinese characters well and efficiently are extremely important and urgent. Unfortunately, there is no relevant research on this issue, so this paper tries to make a research on how to overcome the difficulties of teaching and learning Chinese characters, which can offer valuable assistance toward the teaching and learning of Chinese characters in Buddhist Colleges.The paper investigates the teaching and learning Chinese characters toward freshmen, sophomores and juniors of Shunhua Buddhist College of Vietnam. According to the target students'learning conditions, three investigations and several interviews are carried out. In addition, based on the teachers'teaching, one investigation and several interviews are performed. The questionnaires for students are composed of four parts. The first part is about the monk and nun students' backgrounds, including genders, ages, grades and experiences (time, place, etc.) of learning Chinese characters. The second part is the current status of the monk and nun students'learning based on Chinese characters, including three aspects, such as the viewpoints of Chinese characters, the purposes of learning Chinese characters and the difficulties of reading and writing Chinese characters. The third part is related to the problems of traditional characters and simplified characters. The forth part is about the investigation of ways of students'learning Chinese characters. The investigation of teachers'teaching of characters at Shunhua Buddhist College of Vietnam includes three parts:the course arrangement as well as the teaching materials, teachers' viewpoints on the monk and nun students'learning Chinese characters, and their ideas on the teaching methods and strategies.According to the result of the research, some useful suggestions are put forward as follows:to open a special course on Chinese characters; to compile teaching textbooks for monk and nun students; to start from the basic knowledge of Chinese characters:to explain meanings of characters based on their forms; to emphasize the teaching of homophones, homographs and words with similar forms; to make use of more than one method in teaching; to balance the teaching of traditional and simplified characters with more focus on traditional characters; to divide students into groups according to their Chinese language level.