A Contrastive Research On Chinese Character Teaching By Means Of Repetition Method Or Recall Method

Acquisition of Chinese characters is one of the most important parts of teaching Chinese.To foreign students,Chinese character learning is at the same time one of the most challenging parts of acquiring the language.This paper examines two different strategies for learning Chinese used by Thai grade 5 beginner-level Chinese learners.The author employs survey questionnaire and interview methods to analyze the two character learning strategies in the hopes of providing advice and recommendations.This research selects fifty-three Thai primary Chinese learners as study subjects.Subjects were divided into two groups:Group one consists of twenty-six students who were instructed in the'Recall Method';group two consists of twenty-seven students who were instructed in the'Repetition Method'.Participants studied using the two methods for the same amount of time,learning from identical teaching materials.After four months,a Chinese proficiency test was conducted on the two groups.Analysis of the data collected indicates the following:(1)There is no significant difference between the two Chinese character learning strategies;(2)The learner's initiative in learning Chinese characters and the time spent in using Chinese characters affected learning outcomes;(3)The two Chinese character learning strategies examined have different functions-the 'Recall Method' is useful as a strategy to improve students'reflective thinking ability,while the'Repetition Method' is a strategy that lack of significant connection.The author makes the conclusion that the'Recall Method' allows for the same amount of study to be achieved in less time,which means the Recall Method produces greater benefits for memory ability.It should be noted that,at present,there is a serious lack of empirical research on the two above-mentioned learning strategies as they apply to the learning of Chinese characters.It is the hope of the author that the investigation,interviews and analysis contained in this paper may provide a useful reference about Chinese characters learning strategies,contributing to fill this void.