An Investigation Report On The Teaching Of Chinese Characters At The Starting Point Of Primary Schools In Wales, UK

With ever increasing strength and internationalization influence of China in recent years,Mandarin has been widely spread.There is a large room for Chinese teaching in the UK as the adjustment of foreign language education policy in Britain,and the enforcement of cooperation in language education between two governments as well.A variety of Mandarin curriculums have been offered in the UK universities,many and various lessons,like Chinese club,Mandarin optional course and Chinese culture lesson,etc.,have been set in a great many of educational establishments,which is still in a gradually growing trend.However,the research on Mandarin teaching in the UK is less compare to those in other countries due to reasons of history,culture difference and so on,let alone the study on Chinese characters.Although there do have great achievements in study of Characters teaching at home and abroad,those are generally more in pure theoretical study,lacking of operability in real lessons acting.According to the analysis of actual Chinese class in local primary school in Wales,the UK,and viable teaching methods,strategies and experience from teaching area that have no background of Chinese characters,the paper aims at suggesting methods and ideas that are more specific and efficient for British pupils to learn characters,providing experience for learners without background of Chinese characters.The paper is divided into five parts.The first part is an overall introduction,describing the background,significance,strategies and recent progress of the study.The second part focuses on the brief summary of Chinese teaching in the UK,and basic information in Wales.The third part including questionnaires specific in Chinese character for Mandarin teachers and pupils,and interviews of Mandarin teachers who teach in the UK,head teachers and local governors in Wales.The fourth part is the illustration of reasons of problems in the UK primary school about characters teaching and learning.They are comparatively less attention paid by government and schools,and weakness and deficiency of experienced mandarin teacher,which still needs improvement.The fifthpart is conclusion of methods and advice on international Chinese teaching,including adaptation of various and flexible teaching ways,formulate of teaching materials,improvement of teachers' capacity of characters and enhancement of characters testing system,etc.