1. The document discusses the difficulty of learning Chinese characters and debates whether they are truly difficult to learn. 2. While some research has found that learning characters places greater cognitive demands on learners, other studies indicate that with limited exposure, learners can master the complexity of character structure. 3. The document examines perspectives on teaching characters, including both those who advocate teaching typing over handwriting early on, and those who emphasize the relationship between writing characters and language acquisition.

1. 汉语字符音符能力？
手写，机写还是不写？
宋连谊 路扬
BCLTS Easter Seminar
The University of Nottingham April 2016

2. 人人都说汉字难
• DeFrancis (1984): four times as long for adult native speakers of English to
learn Chinese in both receptive and productive skills than to learn the
European languages.
• Defence Language Institute in the US (2015): requires higher language
aptitude scores (at least 110 for Chinese; 95 for French and Spanish. Also: 64
weeks to accomplish basic level in Chinese and 26 weeks for French and
Spanish.
• Allen (1990): to save time, teach beginners to type rather than write
characters.
• Diao, 2013: second or third year students can’t read the simplest stories in
Chinese texts.
• Guder, 2014: some textbooks oversimplify reading comprehension tasks
which do not correspond to learners’ intellectual capacities.

3. 真难吗？
• Li et al (2014): the neurocognitive approaches necessary to
process the Chinese language show the logographic writing
system place greater cognitive demands on visual-spatial
analytic skills, in both cognitive processing and reading
acquisition” (ibid: 513).
• Seymour (2006): reading Chinese involves the interaction of
at least two cognitive systems: (1) phonological and
orthographic systems. The former processes the
phonological information of Chinese characters, identifying
sounds in order to render the characters into spoken
language, while the latter is applied to encode the written
form in terms of strokes, radicals, and structures so that clues
for meanings can be achieved.

4. 真难吗？
• Shen (2013):
Two kinds of errors:
(1) intra-character-writing when the shape of a character is altered by
omitting or adding strokes
(2) Substitution when a targeted character is substituted by another or
non-character invented by the learner
说明:
(1) learners’ attention is upon the overall configuration of the character
but not upon the details
(2) attention is upon the similarity between characters without
recognising the differences.

5. 真那么难吗？
1. Phonological knowledge obtained by the learners could
play a crucial role in reading, regardless of the
orthographic differences (Perfetti et al., 1992; Perfetti and
Liu, 2005).
2. with limited exposure to Chinese characters, students
could be more able to master the complexity of internal
structure and the structural relationship between
compound characters (Wang et al. 2003, 2004; Shen and
Ke, 2007)
3. learners’ skills in handwriting characters should improve as
their written vocabulary increases (Jiang and Liu, 2004;
Zhu, 2002).

6. 教不教汉字了？
• Light (1975, cited in Ling, 2007)： how to guide students
towards “controlled composition” to aid reading and
literacy through efficient and productive writing exercises.
• Bellassen (2016): 不是教不教的问题，是怎么教的问题。
• 宣力，2016；阚倩，2016；李岚，2016 （SOAS): 问题不在对汉
字的认知而在对汉字的记忆。

7. 写汉字与语言习得有什么关系？
• Chin (1973)： 写汉字与认汉字的因果关系 （被要求手写的认字多，喜欢写，自己常
练的认字最多）
• Lin (2000) ： created a vocabulary acquisition “continuum” for written
Chinese language
学生能认的字 学生能写得字
最多
Shen(2000)： interconnections of reading text based writing and reading
comprehension from the perspective of information processing
Pedagogical implications：writing can help students not only to develop
writing skills, but also to improve reading comprehension
Best way：to teach reading and writing is to teach them together in an
integrated manner.

8. 学生是怎么想的？
• Hu (2011)：164 students mostly on degree courses in UK HE
----- >1 Grammar; 3. writing characters out of six difficulties
Beginners: writing characters was ranked as the most difficult
• Chiang (2002): 16% of the 2nd year students----- character
4%-------reading most difficult
• Yin (2003): beginner to advanced levels perceived writing
characters less difficult than remembering the pronunciation
and recognising the meanings of characters.

9. 目前教育界对汉字教学的要求
QAA – Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education:
• Subject Benchmark Statement （September 2015）
Languages, Cultures and Societies:
7 Benchmark standards
Use of the target language
7.7 Students should have achieved at least level C1 (Effective Operational
Proficiency) in the CEFR and should be able to:

10. 目前教育界对汉字教学的要求
• understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and
recognise implicit meaning
• express themselves fluently and spontaneously without
much obvious searching for expressions
• use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic
and professional purposes
• produce clear, well structured, detailed text on complex
subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns,
connectors and cohesive devices.

11. 目前教育界对汉字教学的要求
7.8 It is recognised that some of these learning outcomes
may not be fully achievable in all programmes, for example
European students studying some Asian languages, … …
Some programmes may also offer students the option to
attain a different level of language competence in different
languages. In these cases, the CEFR standards expected
should be made explicit.

12. 目前教育界对汉字教学的要求
对非本科要达到的标准和技能没有具体要求
• 听说读写
• 听说
• 读写
• 听说读写+打(字)
• 听说读打(-不会写)
• 听说读+写拼音(-不会写字)

13. 欧洲汉语框架：字符与音符能力
• The most important contribution by EBCL to CFL
• Sinographemic Competence
• Hanyu Pinyin Reading and Writing competence

14. 多少部首？
• 康熙字典 – 214个
• 新华字典 – 201个
• 最常用的 - 个？ [部首 / 偏旁 / 部件]
- 象形字中出现的？
- 部首的字频度？
- 所学(初级)字词中出现最多的？

15. CAN-DO STATEMENTS FOR
SINOGRAPHEMIC COMPETENCE
• A1.1-1 Can write down any character by hand after slow visual
instruction (stroke by stroke)
• A1.1-2 Can write down any lexical item or short phrase by hand after
slow visual instruction (stroke by stroke)
• A1-1 Can copy familiar words and characters as well as unfamiliar
characters in simple signs or names.
• A1-2 Can write Chinese characters with the help of electronic devices
• A1-3 Can write down his/her gender, nationality and any date (like
one’s birthday) by hand.
• A1+-1 knows how to use dictionaries or electronic devices to look up
lexical items of unknown characters
• A2-1 Can copy short phrases on everyday subjects by hand without
hesitation - e.g. names of institutions.
• A2-2 Can write by hand with reasonable graphemic accuracy so that
the written characters are understood by other readers or by an OCR
device

16. SUGGESTED KNOWLEDGE AND STRATEGIES
FOR GRAPHEMIC / ORTHOGRAPHIC CONTROL
A learner of Chinese at level A1 (and A1+)
• knows the basic principles of stroke order and stroke direction
• is aware that many characters can be further divided into smaller
components
• knows the main rules of composition of complex characters
• can distinguish simple (独体字) from complex (合体字) characters
• knows the difference between words, characters and components
and does not confuse these three categories
• knows that in di- or polysyllabic words mostly each character has a
morphemic function
• knows about 15 semantic components and can name them in his /
her mother tongue

17. 部首 亻
人
讠
言
氵
水
扌
手
土 口 忄
心
辶 宀 艹 女 日 木 灬
火
钅 月 饣 纟 贝
EBCL                    石 ⺮
T&P                    囗 子
HSK1                  x x 犭 禾
哪些部首？

18. THE CAN-DO STATEMENT ON
COMPETENCE FOR PINYIN BY THE EBCL
AT A1 LEVEL
• can read and understand familiar words and sentences when written in
Pinyin with tone marks
• can write down words and short sentences in Pinyin with mostly correct tone
marks.
• can write down most syllables in Pinyin including tone marks with reasonable
accuracy if they
• are pronounced correctly.
• can read out most Pinyin syllables correctly.
• can type characters and sentences with a computer using the Pinyin input
method.
• can read, write and understand short Pinyin sentences on everyday subjects
or in grammar
• model sentences

19. 汉字教学的客观困难
• HSK
• Programmes in China
• Misunderstanding by other language professionals or
practitioners
• Pressures from increase of tuition fees：学生成了顾客，大学成
了商店
• Students’ frustration and non-commitment
• Present systems for student assessment on teaching： 取悦于
学生

20. 汉字教学的主观困难
DE-METHOD ？(1)
Ellis and Shintani (2014): ‘Method’ Construct (content and
methodology for teaching the content).
Question for method/methodology: how can it make SLA
happen?
汉字教学是为了提高学生整体汉语水平。汉子教学应与认字，阅
读级词汇教学相结合，与听说教学相结合。任何一种语言离不开
书面语。
Goodlad (1982): Teacher teach in the way they were
taught.
只要有效，任何办法（宋）都是方法，但要针对大多数学生。

21. 汉字教学的客观困难
DE-METHOD？ (2)
Ellis and Shintani (2014): summarising the problems of methods:
1. Only for beginners
2. Universal method against individual learner’s needs, learning styles,
etc.
3. Ignore sociocultural milieu/backgrounds
4. Deprive teachers of autonomy
5. Discourage innovations
Theoretical and empirical evaluation show:
Theoretically, CLT is more in line with how learners learn a L2 than AL
method. However, there is no evidence that CLT is more effective than
AL.

22. 结束语
1. Learning characters might not be as difficult as has been
perceived.
2. Richards and Rodgers (2001): teachers evaluate different
methods to decide which one is best suited to a particular
group of learners. 汉字教学（手写）也是这样。