How does writing instruction impact Chinese as a foreign language learners' literacy

Abstract

This Educational Leadership Portfolio (ELP) sought to address the challenge of optimizing handwriting instructional practices and assessment methods for teaching Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) at St. Andrew’s School (SAS). SAS is an Episcopal, co-educational boarding school in Middletown, Delaware. With 18 years of experience as the primary Chinese teacher at SAS, my goal was to improve literacy development by identifying the most efficient method for teaching Chinese characters to beginner and intermediate-level CFL students. ☐ The aim of this ELP was to assess whether traditional handwriting instruction or typing instruction is more effective in facilitating learning for CFL learners. Three key research questions guided this ELP: 1) Does traditional handwriting instruction and/or typing instruction lead to learning for CFL learners' vocabulary, character knowledge, or sentence composition?2) Does the order of traditional handwriting instruction and typing instruction lead to changes in CFL learners' vocabulary, character knowledge, or sentence composition? 3) Does prior language exposure or motivation influence changes in CFL learners' vocabulary, character knowledge, or sentence composition? By addressing these questions, this study sought to provide valuable insights into instructional methods that optimize CFL learning outcomes. ☐ Through a structured study involving Chinese 2, 3, 4, and 5 classes over a 5-week duration, 23 participants were divided into groups to receive handwriting-then-typing or typing-then-handwriting instruction to evaluate the efficacy of stroke order and radical instruction versus stroke order animation video clips for character acquisition. Evidence indicated that both handwriting and typing instruction supported learning across measures of vocabulary, character knowledge, and sentence composition. However, the Handwriting-Typing Group outperformed the Typing-Handwriting Group in vocabulary, character knowledge, and sentence composition. Further, participants exhibited more unprompted self-referential comments during handwriting tasks, indicating a perceived social value or utility of handwriting over typing. Additionally, students demonstrated slightly higher levels of intrinsic motivation toward handwriting instruction, suggesting a preference for handwriting in social contexts. These findings highlight the nuanced relationship between instructional methods and learner perceptions in CFL education.