The area that I find most challenging in my current second language of Chinese is reading and writing. I am an intermediate Chinese learner in the areas of speaking and listening, but with reading and writing I am still on a beginning level. Chinese writing and reading has been difficult for me to learn because you have to learn completely from scratch, rather than using the alphabet like most Western languages use. In the past I have tried to address this issue by increasing the amount of time I spend just writing down the characters repetitively. The end goal of my learning challenge is to become proficient enough to be able to sit the HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) which is a Chinese proficiency test recognized all over the world. Due to time constraints I would not be taking the test this semester though, because it sits on the 12th of May and I’ll need more than a month to prepare. I fully intend on taking and passing level three or four in the second semester of this year.
Over a six week goal I would like to learn forty to fifty new characters a week and be able to apply them practically when writing and reading. I would like to be able to write more efficiently and also have a higher level of fluency and accuracy about my writing. As for reading I want to be able to understand more of passages that would be assigned to me on a weekly basis.
My Learning Styles and Strategies
After taking the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) quiz, I found the area of language learning I am least competent at is Memory; Creating mental links, applying images and sounds, reviewing well, and employing action. Given that Memory is the area that is holding me back from achieving previous language learning goals, this is the strategy that I will be aiming to improve on. The strategies that I will undertake will have a multimodal theme to them because that is my learning style that helps me best.
Technologies I am Going to Test
I will be using more than one technology to assist me in reaching my goals of the learning challenge. The first will be Quizlet. Quizlet is both a website and application based technology where the learner creates their own flash cards for practise. For popular languages there may also be recordings of each word to assist in the listening and pronunciation. Once flashcards have been made on the website they are very easy to download onto the application where the user can learn by matching the words with their English partner, can write them if they are characters, and hear them. Quizlet will be beneficial for my study because it allows me through practice to really commit to memory each character, although it doesn’t allow me to learn the grammar of each word, it does allow me to work on my lacking area of expertise of creating mental links. Another application that I am looking at using is WCC Chinese Characters which is an app based on learning words that are one or more characters combined in pre-made flash cards, this application also shows the other meanings for characters when used in different contexts, because sometimes the characters when read singularly may mean something completely different to when they are put together. This application will be beneficial in improving my Chinese because it will give me a little more context to use the words in and will allow me to learn more difficult phrases. A constraint of WCC Chinese Characters is that you cannot make your own flash cards in the free version you only have three levels to select form, and have to work through each level to get to your proficiency level. Quizlet makes up for this constraint though.
Each week will be based on a Monday-Sunday plan and will follow the same routine to ensure that the learning is uniform and the results can be accurate.
At the beginning of the week using my current Chinese textbook (where each chapter has a different theme) I will identify a list of fifty new characters/words that I am unfamiliar with or unable to use correctly in a sentence and create flash cards in Quizlet and download onto an app. Every day of the week I will practice Quizlet flashcards (learning, reading and writing) three times a day for at least thirty minutes. Once a day I will use the WCC Chinese characters app to practice larger words and phrases. At the end of every week I will document on my blog improvements in word memorization. On the Sunday night at the end of every week before I start a new list, I will write/type a short paragraph for evaluation to be discussed in the next paragraph.
The evaluation approach that I am utilizing will have two methods, on through an application and one through a private tutor that I see twice a week. The application I plan on using is called HSK Test and uses real multiple choice questions taken from past the past HSK. The questions with a listening element to them are spoken in Chinese and all questions and answer are in Chinese characters, this app is designed to show proficiency and for me improvement in reading Chinese. The results of all Quizzes taken with the App will be documented on the blog.
The second method of evaluation will be done by a Chinese tutor who I trust to be honest when marking, who I meet with every Tuesday and Friday afternoon. On the Tuesday the week after I will give my tutor a paragraph of written or typed Chinese based on the characters I learned the week prior, my tutor will then mark this essay and return it to me on the Friday when we next meet with and provide me with feedback. The idea of these essays is that as my proficiency and repertoire of Chinese characters grows, the essays will also grow in size and complexity. Both before marking and after marking copies of the essays will be documented on my blog.
Also Quizlet will be used as a form of evaluation during the week, if I do not think I am putting enough effort on, or the characters are harder than usual, it will show on Quizlet and I can make changes accordingly.
