Analyzing Chinese Character Stroke Order Errors Among Foreign Students At The Primary Stage

In their Chinese learning processes, many foreign students experience difficulties of Chinese characters stroke orders. This universal and long-standing phenomenon raises questions not only among the foreign students, who have problems in recognizing and memorizing Chinese characters, but also in teaching methods, where improvements are needed. This paper focuses on the foreign students in a primary-stage class of the College of International Culture Exchange, Central China Normal University. Research methods include stroke order testing survey, in-class observation and after-class interviews. After the research, a comprehensive analysis of the character stroke order errors is conducted, discussing teaching methods of character stroke order at the initial stage and providing suggestions to the Chinese character teaching among foreign students.The second section will illustrate the stroke order research conducted and errors detected. Basic information of the studying objects and surveys will be given to clarify the standards applied in this domain, and relevant errors be classified according to the positions of strokes and components. According to these, existing stroke order problems among primary-stage foreign students will be presented.The third section comprehensively analysis three objective factors invoking stroke order errors, namely the nature of Chinese characters, problems during teaching and weaknesses in textbooks. At the same time, subjective factors will be obtained via studying the negative transfer of mother tongue, misuse of stroke order rules, confusion of components’ forms, and the stereotyped graphic thinking patterns.The fourth section will offer some suggestions to the stroke order teaching based on the above research and analysis, namely simplifying characters, combining stroke with stroke count and order, inculcating characters’cultural connotation, guiding learning methods and approaches, enriching teaching and practicing forms.The fifth section will conclude the main arguments in this paper, as well as point out the things need improvements.