Confusion and Chinese character learning

ABSTRACT

This study explores the relationship between the experience of confusion and the outcomes of Chinese character learning by learners of Chinese as a heritage language (CHL). Based on the claim that impasses triggering confusion can lead to deeper learning of conceptually difficult material, the study employed three impasse-driven tasks. The tasks were designed to trigger a state of cognitive disequilibrium in the participants. After first encountering the tasks in Session 1, the 117 CHL learners were given 1 week to resolve their impasse-driven tasks in their own time for 30 min (limited by the computer system). Afterwards, we announced the correct answer for them to look at for 3 days, and then Session 2 was administered 1 week after the feedback. The results of this study showed considerable improvement in differentiating near-homographs and homophones presented in a sentence, and correcting wrong Chinese characters. The study’s results suggest that incorporating well-designed confusing content into Chinese learning may help CHL learners deepen their learning of Chinese characters.

KEYWORDS:

• Confusion
• Chinese characters
• impasse-driven learning
• homophone
• near-homograph

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The TOCFL (Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language) was developed based on the guidelines and criteria of CEFR.