Developing and Applying a Chinese Character Learning Game App to Enhance Primary School Students’ Abilities in Identifying and Using Characters

Yao-San Lin,Yung-Sen Wu,Jie Ni Lim

doi:10.3390/educsci12030189

Abstract

The Chinese language is the mother tongue that most students in Singapore need to master. However, for many local students, due to the use of English as the main language in Singapore’s families and the living environment, the time and frequency of using Chinese and the exposure to Chinese characters are relatively insufficient, which leads to a high forgetting rate, confusion of the characters and the improper use of Chinese characters. This study attempts to develop an app of a Chinese character learning game for Singapore primary school students, aiming to stimulate students’ interest in learning Chinese, increase their frequency of contact and use of Chinese characters, and ultimately strengthen their ability to remember, understand and use Chinese characters. By collecting the data from students’ questionnaire surveys, teachers’ questionnaire surveys, students’ literacy tests, and classroom observations, the research team found that the designed app can enhance the interest of lower grade primary school students in learning Chinese and strengthen their ability to memorize and use Chinese characters.

Highlights

Chinese character literacy is the foundation of Chinese language learning and a key focus of primary education
The research team conducted a quantitative analysis of the questionnaire survey
We found that more than half of the P1 and P2 students mainly speak English at home, they are interested in learning Chinese

Summary

Introduction

Chinese character literacy is the foundation of Chinese language learning and a key focus of primary education. Studies show that the difficulty of Chinese character literacy teaching in the lower grades of primary schools is mainly concentrated in the shape of the Chinese character, accounting for 54.4% of errors; in the category of common Chinese character errors, the lower primary students had up to 50% component errors. Through the analysis of the structural characteristics of Chinese characters and the rules of the use of Chinese characters, we can find that most Chinese characters are made up of two or more parts Based on this characteristic, the “component teaching method” can be said to be a feasible method. For the long-term purpose of Chinese character teaching, component structure teaching focuses on the cultivation of students’ abilities to correctly write Chinese characters and self-study Chinese characters [1]. The recognition and memory of Chinese characters can be promoted by strengthening the contact and learning of the component structures

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion