Learning Chinese Characters with Animated Etymology

Jian He and Hui Huang
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Jian He: School of School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Hui Huang: School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching (IJCALLT), 2014, vol. 4, issue 2, 64-82

Abstract: The study was an attempt to investigate the effect of animated etymology on English speakers' learning of Chinese characters. Twenty-one Chinese language beginners at an Australian university were randomly assigned into three groups using three different types of instructional materials to learn Chinese characters: a) paper-based plain text material with only English meanings; b) paper-based material with English meanings, pictures and static etymological information; and c) CALL material with English meanings, pictures and animated etymological information. The effects of three materials were tested under two task conditions: a) picture-enhanced tasks and b) non-picture-enhanced tasks. Through both within-group and cross-group comparisons, the statistical results indicate that the group using computer-based materials involving animated etymology significantly outperformed those using the paper-based materials with and without illustrated etymological information in both tasks and the advantages of paper-based illustrated etymological information over the paper-based group without such information are limited to the tasks involving pictures.

Date: 2014
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