Attaching Meaning to Chinese Characters : A retrieval practice study of learners with no knowledge of Chinese

En ökad efterfrågan på talare av mandarin kinesiska (hädanefterkinesiska) i väst har lett till ett ökat behov av högkvalitetsundervisning i kinesiska. I den här undersökningen studerade 24 svenska modersmålstalare utan tidigare kinesisk språkerfarenhet 60 svenska ord i kombination med deras kinesiska motsvarighet. Hälften av paren lärdes genom upprepade studier (där ordparen presenteras samtidigt) och hälften av paren genom aktiv minneshämtning (där ordparen presenteras separat). Varaktigheten av upprepade studieroch aktiva minneshämtningen likställdes. Alla de kinesiska tecknen presenterades tillsammans med en fonologisk representation. Efter att ha lärtde 60 ordparen, utfördesett flervalstest för att bedöma läranderesultatet. För att testa för den fonologiska representationens betydelse vid inlärning så presenterades hälften av ordparen från varje betingelse utan deras fonologiska representation under testningen. Logistikblandade modellerfann att prestationvar signifikant bättre förupprepade studier jämfört med aktiv minneshämtningoch att tillgång till en fonologisk representation under testninginte gav signifikant bättre testprestanda.An increased demand for speakers of Mandarin Chinese (henceforth Chinese) in the West has lead to an increased need for high quality teaching of Chinese. In the present study, 24 native Swedish speakers with no prior Chinese language experience studied 60 Swedish words paired with their Chinese equivalents. Half of the pairs were learned by repeated studying (with the word pairs presented simultaneously) and half of the pairs by active retrieval (with the word pairs presented separately). The durations of repeated study and active memory retrieval were equated. All the Chinese characters were presented along with a phonological representation. After learning the 60 word pairs, a multiple-choice test was conducted to assess learning outcome. To test for for the importance of the phonological representation, half of the word pairs learnt in each condition had the representation removed during testing. Logistic mixed models found that performance was significantly better for repeated studying compared to active memory retrieval and that having access to a phonological representation during testing did not yield significantly better test performance. Keywords: Mandarin Chinese, second language learning, the testing effec

Attaching Meaning to Chinese Characters : A retrieval practice study of learners with no knowledge of Chinese

En ökad efterfrågan på talare av mandarin kinesiska (hädanefterkinesiska) i väst har lett till ett ökat behov av högkvalitetsundervisning i kinesiska. I den här undersökningen studerade 24 svenska modersmålstalare utan tidigare kinesisk språkerfarenhet 60 svenska ord i kombination med deras kinesiska motsvarighet. Hälften av paren lärdes genom upprepade studier (där ordparen presenteras samtidigt) och hälften av paren genom aktiv minneshämtning (där ordparen presenteras separat). Varaktigheten av upprepade studieroch aktiva minneshämtningen likställdes. Alla de kinesiska tecknen presenterades tillsammans med en fonologisk representation. Efter att ha lärtde 60 ordparen, utfördesett flervalstest för att bedöma läranderesultatet. För att testa för den fonologiska representationens betydelse vid inlärning så presenterades hälften av ordparen från varje betingelse utan deras fonologiska representation under testningen. Logistikblandade modellerfann att prestationvar signifikant bättre förupprepade studier jämfört med aktiv minneshämtningoch att tillgång till en fonologisk representation under testninginte gav signifikant bättre testprestanda.An increased demand for speakers of Mandarin Chinese (henceforth Chinese) in the West has lead to an increased need for high quality teaching of Chinese. In the present study, 24 native Swedish speakers with no prior Chinese language experience studied 60 Swedish words paired with their Chinese equivalents. Half of the pairs were learned by repeated studying (with the word pairs presented simultaneously) and half of the pairs by active retrieval (with the word pairs presented separately). The durations of repeated study and active memory retrieval were equated. All the Chinese characters were presented along with a phonological representation. After learning the 60 word pairs, a multiple-choice test was conducted to assess learning outcome. To test for for the importance of the phonological representation, half of the word pairs learnt in each condition had the representation removed during testing. Logistic mixed models found that performance was significantly better for repeated studying compared to active memory retrieval and that having access to a phonological representation during testing did not yield significantly better test performance. Keywords: Mandarin Chinese, second language learning, the testing effec