This course will be guiding teachers to teach Chinese characters by showing children the evolution of the characters in the form of magical changes. Teachers will first show some drawings to children, then they will be guiding the latter to make logical inferences on the evolution of Chinese characters from the drawings based on their past experiences. Through understanding how Chinese characters evolve, children will be able to remember the meaning of the characters as well as how to write them. Based on Chinese radicals, teachers will be able to incorporate the lessons with children’s daily life by constructing a comprehensive image of the Chinese way of life in front of children through introducing the four Chinese basic needs and concerns – clothing, food, living and transportation, using story-based and imagery memory strategies. In addition, this course aims to aid preschool teachers in applying a variety of teaching strategies to make connection between Primary One and Two textbooks’ contents on radicals so that they can ease the difficulties of students in mastering the shapes and meanings of the Chinese characters. This is important as it helps to inculcate a love for learning Chinese characters in students.

The course content includes:

1. The techniques of explaining Chinese characters: Analysing characters from their shapes, understanding the meanings of characters through images, interpreting characters by tracing back to their sources, comprehending characters through categorisation, etc.

2. The principles and teaching plans of Component Teaching Method, Character Traceability Strategy, and Special Association Method.

3. The induction and categorisation of Chinese radicals and Chinese character games.