Introducing Chinese Hanzi at the beginning of teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL)

Abstract The high dropout rate of students studying Chinese is a concern for educators in teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL). However, very limited studies have been undertaken to investigate the impact of the important part of CFL learning ‘Hanzi’ in the successful teaching and learning of CFL. This paper therefore investigated the rationale and significance of Hanzi’ instruction and the need to integrate Hanzi instruction into teaching of CFL from the very beginning of teaching CFL. Readers will find this paper useful in understanding the importance of Hanzi instruction in teaching CFL, and how to construct a contemporary, international curriculum that can adequately address the fundamental concerns of the teaching and learning of CFL. This paper can be used to initiate a research agenda and inform an initiative thinking for curriculum development, to be used as a signpost to set up a conceptual framework on international curriculum development of CFL.