Pinyin, stroke or both? Investigating the effectiveness of the hanyu pinyin and stroke method on Chinese foreign language learners

• Main Author: Fong, Samantha Xianwen
• Other Authors: Alice Hiu Dan Chan
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Humanities::Linguistics::Psycholinguistics
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/138293
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The romanisation of Chinese characters - known as “Hanyu Pinyin” - and the conventional stroke method are the two approaches most people around the world use to facilitate their learning of the Chinese language. In Singapore, both approaches are used, but the Hanyu Pinyin method receives more focus and is formally introduced to students at the beginning of primary school. This study investigates the effectiveness when the pinyin and stroke approaches are combined. Twenty Malay undergraduates were recruited for this study to explore the effects of three conditions on immediate recall - the Hanyu Pinyin, stroke and the combined approach. Within a 1 hour session, they were trained in these three conditions and tested in three aspects – reading, meaning retrieval and spelling. Each participant was trained and tested on a total of 18 characters. Half the participants received content refreshers during the session, while the other half did not. Overall, the findings revealed that neither the Hanyu Pinyin or stroke approach is more effective than the other as they produced very similar results. The researcher concludes by recommending the combined approach that maximises the advantages of both pinyin and stroke. In addition, the application of a refresher has shown to be effective in improving immediate recall.