The Effect of Radical Knowledge and Corresponding Pictograms in Learning Chinese as a Foreign Language

• In Event: Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: Trends in Second Language Reading Research

Abstract

Foreign language learners whose native language deals with alphabetic orthographies always feel overwhelmed and unmotivated to learn Chinese characters (Shen, 2010). If Chinese vocabulary learning materials contain pictorial cues, the Chinese-as-a-foreign language (CFL) learners will have more opportunities to interact with such materials (Shen, 2010).

We hypothesized that through pictograms, CFL learners would gain insight into the radical forms; through the knowledge of radical forms, CFL learners would not feel frustrated to learn Chinese words. Afterwards, the learners could guess the meanings of compound words containing the learned basic words and radical forms. We found that this process of learning was shown to have a positive effect on learning motivation and vocabulary attainment.

Authors

• Juiteng Li, Texas A&M University

• Fuhui Tong, Texas A&M University - College Station