A Research on Applying the 'Liushu Theory' on Teaching Chinese Characters to Sri Lankan Student.

Abstract

Starting from the year 2004, the students who are learning Chinese in Sri Lanka have gradually increased. Among the problems observed among the learners, the main problem was the inadequacy of study resources including Chinese books, articles and research books for the students who learned Chinese. Specially, there was a less amount of books and other academic material related to Chinese language. Therefore, the teachers used various methods including writing on the black board, reading characters, explaining the meaning of the words, and giving homework in teaching. Because of the use of traditional teaching methods, which were rather ineffective in the classrooms, the learning process was impeded and the students lacked extensive knowledge on Chinese language. To overcome this issue, a theory called “liu shu” was introduced, which was specially created for the Sri Lankan students. The theory was first implemented in University of Kelaniya, where 2 groups, each consisting of 25 students who are learning Chinese in first year were selected for the experiment. One group was taught according the method “liu shu”, and the other according to the current traditional teaching methods. After two months, an examination was held to evaluate the students. It was observed that the lowest marks obtained the group taught according to the “liu shu” method was higher than the highest mark obtained by the other group. Therefore it was concluded that using the method “liu shu” one can ascertain how to write correct Chinese characters, how to pronounce Chinese characters correctly, how to improve the knowledge of the history of Chinese, tradition and culture of Chinese and the civilization of Chinese better than when using traditional teaching methodologies. Further, as a result of that research, eight new methods of teaching Chinese were created, which highlight the importance of the method as an improved and effective learning as well as a teaching method.