On strategies for teaching Chinese characters

Abstract

In the process of learning Chinese, characters are one of the biggest challenges for students from outside the Chinese culture sphere. The strategy of teaching characters undertaken by the teacher has a huge impact on the development of learners’ language skills as well as on their motivation and approach to learning. This article discusses strategies for teaching Chinese characters. The authors focus on the benefits and problems resulting from two main didactic concepts: first, spoken language, then, writing and language-character integration. The authors presents the factors that should be taken into account when deciding whether to adopt the appropriate strategy for teaching characters.