To Delay or Not to Delay: The Timing of Chinese Character Instruction for Secondary Learners

The timing of character instruction for beginning Chinese foreign language learners has been a controversial issue in Chinese language instruction for many decades. Some instructors teach characters early and integrate this learning with oral language; other instructors teach characters only after an oral base has been established. To date, the experimental research on this topic has been conducted exclusively with university students, and it is unknown if results can generalize to a younger demographic with different learning needs and instructional contexts. The purpose of this study was to examine the reading, writing, and oral language skills of beginning‐level middle school students with no Chinese language background who were divided into early and delayed instruction groups. In addition, a questionnaire about the students’ attitudes toward character learning was administered. It was found that the early instruction group performed significantly better than the delayed group on reading comprehension and character writing tests; there were no significant differences between the groups on the oral interview and the oral fluency assessments. The attitudes survey showed no significant differences in character learning attitudes between the early and the delayed groups except in regard to the timing of character instruction. Pedagogical applications are suggested.