7-day Unit of Chinese Character Learning

R546

7-day Unit of

Chinese Character

Learning Final Project – Curriculum Unit

2011/3/5

R546 Instructional Strategies for Thinking, Collaboration, and Motivation Instructor: Dr. C. J. Bonk

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Table of Content

Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 2

Targeted Group .......................................................................................................................... 2

Learning Objectives .......................................................................................................... 2

Content at a Glance.......................................................................................................... 3

Materials ......................................................................................................................... 3

Instructional Strategies .................................................................................................... 5

Lesson 1 .................................................................................................................................. 5

Lesson 2 .................................................................................................................................. 6

Lesson 3 .................................................................................................................................. 7

Lesson 4 .................................................................................................................................. 8

Lesson 5 ................................................................................................................................ 10

Lesson 6 ................................................................................................................................ 11

Lesson 7 ................................................................................................................................ 12

Anticipated Assessment Procedures ............................................................................... 13

References ..................................................................................................................... 13

Appendix ....................................................................................................................... 13

Assessment Form ................................................................................................................. 14

Homework for Pictograms .................................................................................................... 15

Homework for Ideogrammic Compounds ............................................................................ 17


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Introduction

This 7-day unit of Chinese Character Learning is going to help learners generally understand

the cultural and lingual features of Chinese characters, which include the legendary origin,

historical change of written styles1, types of character formation2, and Chinese character

reading and writing.

This unit is defined as the next step of Chinese Pinyin3 learning unit during the whole

process of a Chinese Language Club.

Targeted Group

This unit is designed for adult learners with a prior knowledge of Chinese Pinyin.

For the convenience of instructional design, the learner group here is specified as composed

of 18 graduate learners from Indiana University.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this unit, learners will be able to:

Achieve basic understanding of the evolution of Chinese characters. For example:

Describe the legendary origin of Chinese characters in their own words;

List the names of six written styles chronologically; and

Identify the written style of characters.

Gain a general knowledge of the formation of Chinese characters. For example:

Name the four formation types of Chinese characters; and

Classify characters into their corresponding formation types.

Develop the skill of recognizing, pronouncing and writing Chinese characters. For

example:

Tell the meaning of each character;

Pronounce each character correctly; and

Write characters in an appropriate way.

1 Written styles: There are numerous styles, or scripts, in which Chinese characters can be written, deriving from

various calligraphic and historical models. Most of these originated in China and are now common, with minor variations, in all countries where Chinese characters are used. The most famous six styles are: Oracle Bone Script, Seal Script, Clerical Script, Cursive Script, Semi-cursive Script and Regular Script, from the oldest to the latest. 2 Formation of characters refers to the methods of forming characters, which can be classified into six categories

– pictograms, ideograms, ideogrammic compounds, phono-semantic compounds, transformed cognates and rebus. The first four categories appear more in all Chinese characters. 3 Pinyin is the official phonetic system to transcribe Chinese characters to teach Mandarin Chinese.


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Content at a Glance

No. Title Time Description

Lesson 1 Evolution of Chinese

characters

45 min Learners will achieve basic understanding

of the evolution of Chinese characters,

including the legendary origin and

historical change of six written styles.

Lesson 2 Chinese character strokes4 45 min Learners will gain the knowledge of seven

types of strokes and the stroke order.

Lesson 3 Pictograms 45 min Learners will understand the feature of

pictograms and learn to recognize and

write 22 examples of pictograms.

Lesson 4 Ideograms 45 min Learners will understand the feature of

ideograms and learn to recognize and write

19 examples of ideograms.

Lesson 5 Ideogrammic compounds 45 min Learners will understand the feature of

ideogrammic compounds and learn to

recognize and write 17 examples of

ideogrammic compounds.

Lesson 6 Phono-semantic

compounds

45 min Learners will understand the feature of

phono-semantic compounds and learn to

recognize and write 17 examples of

phono-semantic compounds.

Lesson 7 Review 45 min Learners will review all that has been

learned in previous six lessons.

Materials

Paper handouts

Characters to be learned for each lesson

Homework for Pictograms

Homework for Ideogrammic Compounds

PowerPoint slides which contains:

Flash animation about Cangjie5’s invention of Chinese characters

Flash animation of the evolution of Chinese character written styles

Flash animation of Chinese character writing following the stroke order

4 Chinese character strokes are the calligraphic strokes needed to write the Chinese characters which include dot,

horizontal, vertical, rise, press down and throw away, and combining strokes which include break, hook, bend and slant. 5 Cangjie is a very important figure in ancient China (c. 2650 BC), claimed to be an official historian of the Yellow

Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters. The legend tells that Cangjie was hunting on Mount Yangxu (today Shanxi) when he saw a tortoise whose veins caught his curiosity. Inspired by the possibility of a logical relation of those veins, he studied the animals of the world, the landscape of the earth, and the stars in the sky, and invented a symbolic system called zì—Chinese characters.


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Materials for games

Character cards

Dices; Strings; A small ball

Xuan paper, brushes, and ink


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Instructional Strategies

Lesson 1 – Evolution of Chinese characters

1. Social Ice-breaking activities (10 minutes)

Treasure hunt; Coat of arms; “Have you ever”.

2. Visualized Metaphor of Expectation (6 minutes)

1) Have learners take out a blank sheet of paper and draw a picture to illustrate their

expectations for this 7-day unit of learning.

2) Go around and check learners’ work. Pick up some pictures that can be symbolized

into Chinese characters. Write the corresponding characters on the whiteboard.

If there are no pictures meeting the requirement, write “明” (referring to

inspiration), “ 品 ” (referring to tasting), and “ 众 ” (referring to

collaboration/cooperation).

3. Overview of Chinese characters (3 minutes)

Tell learners that Chinese characters belong to an ideographic writing system.

4. Video displaying (5 minutes)

1) Show a clip of video about Cangjie’s invention of Chinese characters.

2) Explain the legendary origin of Chinese characters.

5. Flash animation (6 minutes)

1) Show a clip of flash animation about the evolution of Chinese character written

styles.

2) List the six types of written styles – Oracle Bone Script, Seal Script, Clerical Script,

Cursive Script, Semi-cursive Script and Regular Script, and explain their chronological

sequence (in the PowerPoint).

3) Give more examples for each style (in the PowerPoint).

6. Character Cards Game (One character on each card; three cards for each written style;

altogether 18 cards.) (10 minutes)

1) Have each learner randomly pick a card. Six people with different written styles

form a group. The six people in a group stand in line following the chronological

sequence.

2) The fastest group gets 3 points; the second group gets 2 points; the last group gets

1 point.

3) Allow group members to point out other group’s error (s) and give 1 bonus for each

error.

4) The group with highest score will be awarded with the most valuable gift today. The

other two get less valuable ones. Provide feedback and correct errors if any.

7. Talking String (5 minutes)

Have learners reflect on what they have learned today.


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Lesson 2 – Chinese character strokes

1. Introduction (Watch the Flash Animation Clip Again) (3 minutes)

Play the clip of flash animation used in Lesson1 again as a review of the evolution of

Chinese characters, as well as an introduction to the new knowledge that learners are

going to learn — how to write Chinese characters. In this flash animation clip, the steps

of writing specific characters are demonstrated.

2. Stroke types (17 minutes)

1) Introduce all types of strokes to learners by writing each of them on the

whiteboard and introducing their names.

Table 1 Types of strokes

break hook bend slant

dot horizontal vertical rise press

down

throw

away combining strokes

2) Jigsaw groups:

Pick out several characters in the animation for practicing (月 [moon]、火 [fire]、

林 [forest] etc.), and then assign each learner into two groups – the expert group

and the home group. In the expert group, group members focus on one specific

type of stroke and try to find it out from all the characters. Then ask learners to go

back to their family groups to share their findings and learn other strokes from

other team members.

Have learners count out the number of strokes in each character in their home

groups.

Have each home group report previous learning results to the whole class. Provide

timely feedbacks.

3. Stroke Order(15 minutes)

1) Explain general guidelines of stroke order and play a series of corresponding flash

clips as demonstration, in which characters are written stroke by stroke following

those guidelines.

Table 2. Guidelines of stroke order

Guidelines of Stroke Order Example

From up to bottom 三

From left to right 从

Horizontal before vertical 十

Center before outside 水

Bottom enclosures last 过

Dots and minor strokes last 玉


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2) Jigsaw groups:

Have learners get together in their home groups again and discuss the stroke order

of each character given in the previous steps. Provide timely feedback to the whole

class.

Have learners write these characters and review each other’s writing in pairs within

their home group.

4. Chinese Calligraphy Game: Write “永 [forever]” (10 minutes)

Most Chinese people start practicing Chinese calligraphy with “永”, because this

character includes all the majority types of strokes and has a graceful structure. So, this

game session is designed in order to motivate learners to practice writing Chinese.

1) Send out Chinese calligraphy paper, brushes and ink to each learner.

2) Demonstrate how to write “永”. (REMEMBER: emphasize stroke styles and order in

this character.)

3) Learners practice and put their compositions in the front of the classroom.

4) Vote for the best composition and reward the best “calligraphist”.

5. Homework

1) Assign learners with 10 commonly used Chinese characters and ask them to finish

the following tasks in each character: find out certain types of strokes, count the

number of strokes, and point out a certain stroke (like the fifth stroke).

2) Play online character wring games at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/games/characters.shtml

Lesson 3 – Pictograms6

1. Introduction (State objectives) (3 minutes)

Tell learners that in the following 4 weeks they are going to learn four types of Chinese

characters (pictograms, ideograms, Ideogrammic compounds, and phono-semantic

compounds) without mentioning names of each type.

2. Feature inference ( 5 minutes)

1) Provide learners with eight ancient Chinese hieroglyphics together with their

corresponding modern Chinese characters (Table 1).

2) Use Socratic Questioning Method and lead learners to reach the conclusion that

“characters in this type are derived from pictures, but they have been standardized,

simplified, and stylized to write in an easier way.”

Table 3 Examples of 8 Pictograms

Hieroglyphic

Chinese

Modern

Chinese

水日月山火木雨田

English Water Sun Moon Mountain Fire Wood Rain Field

6 Pictograms are derived from pictures. They have been standardized, simplified, and stylized to write in an

easier way.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/games/characters.shtml


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3. Characters learning (20 minutes)

Instructors will use different strategies to teach learners about 22 characters.

1) Demographic groupings + Creative role play:

Group learners in a team of 3 based on their birth months.

Each team will work on one of the characters that showed in Table 3.

Ask learners to discuss the stroke order and the meaning of this character.

Let learners play the role of “instructor” to teach other learners about this character.

2) Creative dramatics:

Use body gestures to illustrate all the characters in the parentheses. (人[human

being],女 [female],子 [child], 大 [big])

For example, 女 [female]: Kneel down and sit on the heel.

3) Visualization:

Use PowerPoint to show the comparison of ancient Chinese hieroglyphics and their

corresponding modern Chinese characters.

Teach learners the stroke order.

4. Inference of the type name (2 minutes)

1) Encourage learners to name this type of characters.

2) Provide the correct answer (Pictograms). (If time permits, analyze some learners’

funny examples).

5. Card games (Find you perfect match) (5 minutes)

1) Assign each learner with a card on which there is either a modern Chinese character

or an ancient hieroglyphics.

2) Have learners find “the other half” of their card to make a “perfect match”.

3) Show each pair of “perfect match” to the whole class.

4) Lead the whole class to recall the stroke order.

6. Creative story writing: (5 minutes)

In the end, learners will write a story with some characters they have learned in this

class. (e.g. One 人 [person] was working in the 田 [field], suddenly it 雨 [rained] and

he saw a 女 [female] riding a 马 [horse]……)

7. Homework

See appendix II.

Lesson 4 – Ideograms7

1. Chinese numbers from 1 to 10(25 minutes)

1) Write down 1, 2 and 3 in Chinese characters (一, 二, 三) on the whiteboard. Ask

learners to predict how to write 4 in Chinese. If they say four horizontal strokes, tell a

story named Silly Boy Learned Characters8.

7 Ideograms are also called simple indicatives or simple ideographs. These characters are either direct iconic

illustrations, or modified from existing pictographs iconically by adding indicative strokes. 8 Silly Boy Learned Characters tells a story of how a silly boy learned Chinese characters. This boy just started

learning Chinese characters from his teacher. After learning how to write one, two and three, he thought he could write all the numbers by merely adding horizontal lines, so he stopped learning. One day when his father asked

him to write a letter to Mr. 万 [ten thousand], he had no idea of how to finish this task. This story implies that we should be persistent when acquiring new knowledge.


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2) Write down 4 to 10 (四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十). When writing, remind learners to

pay attention to the stroke order.

3) Using these ten characters, introduce the concept of ideograms to learners: what

ideograms are and what features ideograms have.

4) Quick response with feet

Divide learners into groups of three people. Groups take turns to stand in the center

of the classroom to play this Chinese number game.

Show the character board with a Chinese number on it. All members in the “central”

group should read this number aloud and then try to keep the same number of

foot/feet on the ground. Chair, table and other stuffs can be used to help keep

balance.

5) Dice dictation

Throw out two big dices to have learners add up the two numbers and write down

the sum in Chinese. Throw dices ten times.

Have learners check their answers in pairs. The pair with the highest accuracy will

report answers to the whole class. The instructor provides timely feedback.

2. Learn other ideograms (20 minutes)

1) Teach another group of ideograms (上 [up] 下 [down] 本 [root] 刃 [blade] 王

[king] 亦 [also] 甘 [sweet] 中 [middle/center] 天 [sky]), which were all modified

from existing pictographs by adding one to several indicative strokes. For example,

刃 [blade] is obtained by modifying the existing pictogram 刀 [knife] with a stroke

that indicates the blade. Teach these 9 characters one by one, marking those

indicative strokes in red.

2) Take away and put back

Use paperboard to cut out these 9 characters before class, with existing pictographs

in black and indicative strokes in red. Take away indicative strokes from all the

characters and choose some learners to put them back, pronounce the new

characters and explain their meanings. Play this game among the whole class.

3) Fish Bowl +throwing ball

Divide the whole class into 9 pairs and play the Fish Bowl game. The pair who throws

the ball says one character of the nine. The pair who gets the ball writes down this

character on a piece of paper and explains its meaning, and then throws the ball and

says another character……Each pair will get the ball only once. Play this game until

every character has been practiced. The instructor should give timely feedback.

3. Homework

1) Use Chinese number to write the answers.

2+7= 5+9= 23-16= 58-25= 3*8= 6*9= 68/4= 100/5=

2) Practice 上下本刃王亦甘中天 by writing each of them 5 times, and then find a

classmate to help dictate those characters.


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Lesson 5 – Ideogrammic compounds9

1. Brainstorm to recall (8 minutes)

1) Have learners to brainstorm all the characters they have learned from Lesson 3 & 4.

2) Ask learners to work in pairs to double check whether they have missed any

characters.

3) Let learners recall the meaning of each character.

2. Webbing and Mapping (20 minutes)

1) Write down some Pictograms and Ideograms.

2) Use different kinds of mapping and webbing methods (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.)

to show learners that the combination of learned words can compose new words.

Figure 1. Character mapping example 1 – matching

Figure 2. Character mapping example 2 – central webbing

3) Use some pictures to teach learners the meaning of the 17 new words.

4) Tell learners that this type of character is called “Ideogrammic compounds.”

3. Finding friends with cards (7 minutes)

1) Assign each learner with a card on which there is a Pictogram or an Ideogram.

2) Have learners find “the other half” of their card to make a “perfect match”.

3) Let learners explain to each other the meaning of this character.

4) Have learners practice the pronunciation of their characters.

4. Sharing your “love story” to others (10 minutes)

1) Ask each “perfect match” to write their character on the whiteboard.

2) Have each team take turns to explain their “love story” (meaning/pronunciation) to

the whole class.

3) When each team finished their “love story”, lead the whole class to practice the

9 Ideogrammic compounds are those characters symbolically combined by pictograms or ideograms.


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stroke order of each character.

Lesson 6 – Phono-semantic compounds10

1. Features of phono-semantic compounds (15 minutes)

1) List a group of phono-semantic compounds on the whiteboard:妈 [mother], 吗

[interrogative],蚂 [ant], 玛 [agate], 骂 [scold].

2) Teach learners how to pronounce each character in this group. Ask learners what

phenomenon they have found----they all have same or similar pronunciation with

马 [horse]. So 马 is a phonetic indicator in these characters.

3) Tell learners the meaning of each character in this group. Ask learners what

principles they have found – they all contain a part which is an existing character

suggesting the overall meaning of the whole character. For example,女 [woman]

suggests the meaning of 妈 [mother]. So 女 [female], 口 [mouth], 虫 [insect],

王 [king] are the semantic indicators in this group of characters.

4) Based on this group of characters, generate the concept or features of

phono-semantic compounds: a phono-semantic compound is a character which has

one part indicating pronunciation, while another suggests the meaning.

5) Teach other phono-semantic compounds(虾 [shrimp], 吓 [scare], 闷 [stuffy], 们

[suffix of plural form], 问 [ask], 忍 [endure], 恋 [love], 伙 [companion], 忠

[loyalty], 旺 [flourishing]) by pointing out the phonetic indicator and the semantic

indicator within each of them.

2. Check Board (10 minutes )

Write down all the phonetic parts of these examples in the first column of the table, and

the semantic parts in the first line. Learners play this game in a group of three. If they

can compose a character that has been taught in this class, write it down in the crossing

square; if they cannot, put a cross sign there. The group that get the most correct

characters will be awarded.

3. Teacher-learner Cooperation (10minutes)

Prepare character cards before class. Each card has a single phonetic indicator or a

semantic indicator on it. Give each learner two cards and keep 10 cards. There can be

some identical cards. Show a card to the whole class. When the learner finds his/her

indicator can form a phono-semantic compound with the teacher’s, he/she stands up,

pronounces the new character and tells its meaning to the whole class. Other learners

write this character on a piece of paper.

4. PMI (10 minutes)

Have learners do PMI analysis for today’s lesson. This is a kind of review, as well as a

method of indicating what learners still want to know about phono-semantic

compounds. Based on learners’ answers, have a small discussion about anything related

to this category of characters.

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Phono-semantic compounds are also called semantic-phonetic compounds or pictophonetic compounds. These characters are composed of two parts: one of a limited set of pictographs, often graphically simplified, which suggests the general meaning of the character, and an existing character pronounced approximately as the new target word. By far phono-semantic compounds are the most numerous category of Chinese character.


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5. Homework:

1) Practice all example characters in this lesson 5 times for each, and then find a

classmate to help dictate those characters.

2) Look through a Chinese dictionary to get five or more phono-semantic compounds.

Write and introduce them to several classmates before next class.

Lesson 7 – Unit review

1. Bingo game board (10 minutes)

1) Prepare 35 questions (e.g. how to write a specific Chinese character; tell the

meaning of a given Chinese character, etc.)

2) Send out bingo cards (with only 29 blanks) to each learner; ask them to fill in each

cell with numbers of 1 – 35.

3) Use a lottery system to choose numbers of questions to answer (if the number is

not listed in learners’ bingo board, they don’t need to write the answer).

4) If anyone gets all the numbers in a horizontal or vertical line answered, he/she has

a chance to tell other learners their answers. If all the answers are correct, the

learner is a winner.

5) The first 5 winners get a prize. (e.g. Chinese calligraphy, Chinese knot, etc.)

2. TicTac Toe (15 minutes)

1) Prepare another 27 questions varying from evolution of Chinese characters,

Chinese character strokes to the four types of Chinese characters.

2) Divide the whole class into 2 groups, X and O, who take turns to mark the cells in a

3×3 grid.

3) The X group goes first. The first group that succeeds in placing three marks in a

horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line wins this round.

4) Play this game 3 times. The team who wins more than two rounds will be the final

winner. All the members of the winner team will get a prize (e.g. Chinese paper

cutting).

3. Phillips 66 methods (Buzz Groups) (15 minutes)

1) Ask learners to recall what they have learned in this 7-day class. Have them write

down their thoughts.

2) Have learners work in groups of six to exchange ideas and make conclusion of what

they have learned. After 6 minutes, stop discussion. Groups share thoughts with

the class.

3) Have learners go back to their seats to write a new “class review” with their

desk-mates. The instructor picks out the best two pairs and let them show their

work to the whole class.

4. The end(5 minutes)

1) Give a summary of this 7-day class.

2) Ask learners to finish the assessment form (see appendix I).


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Anticipated Assessment Procedures

The instruction of this unit is going to be evaluated in two methods:

1. Learners’ performance in their homework

2. Assessment Form (see appendix I)

References

Chinese Character. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 4, 2011, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character

Appendices

Appendix I – Assessment Form (see next page)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character


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Assessment form

Please complete this form to let us know your reaction to our program. Your

response will help us to evaluate our efforts, and your comment and suggestion will

help us to plan future programs that meet your needs and interests.

Instruction: Please circle the appropriate response after each statement

Statements Strongly Strongly

Disagree Agree Agree

1. The instructor was well-prepared. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

2. The instructor was an effective communicator. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

3. The learning activities were engaging. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

4. The schedule was suitable. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

5. The course structure was appropriate. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

6. The learning material was helpful. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

7. Do you think this course help you to achieve your learning objectives?

If yes, please tell us what help you the most to achieve your objectives?

If no, what would we do to improve the course?


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Appendix II – Homework for Pictograms

Hieroglyphic

Chinese

Pin Yin

(Pronunciation)

Modern

Chinese

Practice


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Appendix III – Homework for Ideogrammic Compounds

好，休，明，鸣，囚，仔，奋，雷，坐，品，从，炎，晶，众，林，森，焚

The words listed above are all Ideogrammic compounds. Fill in these three tables with

appropriate characters.

Table 1

Structure Left and Right

Chinese

Character

Pin Yin

(Pronunciation)

Meaning

Practice

Table 2

Structure Up and Down

Chinese

Character

Pin Yin

(Pronunciation)

Meaning

Practice


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Table 3

Structure Inside and Outside

Chinese

Character

Pin Yin

(Pronunciation)

Meaning

Practice

Documents

7-day Unit of Chinese Character Learning