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00400	C00002 00002		TEACHING AND LEARNING CHINESE IN A COMPUTER ENVIRONMENT
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00100		TEACHING AND LEARNING CHINESE IN A COMPUTER ENVIRONMENT
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00300				SUSAN POH 
00400				The Mitre Corporation 
00500				Westgate Research Park
00600				McLean, Va.
00700	
00800	
00900	People  in  Western  civilization  encounter  great  difficulty  when
01000	attempting  to learn  the Chinese language.   The  major difficulties
01100	seem   to  be   due   to   the   non-alphabetic,   non-phonetic   and
01200	pictorially-structured characters. Additionally, a  better and a more
01300	efficient   teaching  and  learning  methodology  for  such  type  of
01400	language  is  also lacking.  This  paper  describes  an  experimental
01500	system which applies computers  and computer graphics to teach people
01600	to learn the Chinese ideogram in a systematic, simple, and  effective
01700	manner.
01800	
01900	This  experimental  Chinese teaching  and learning  system has  been
02000	implemented  using a  special purpose  system called  LOGO.   LOGO is
02100	LISP-based software, implemented on  several PDP-10 computers on  the
02200	ARPA  network.   It  was designed  to study  whether  the notion  and
02300	formal  reasoning  of  problem-solving skills  can  be  taught.   The
02400	software provides  a set  of commands to  control a  robot (called  a
02500	"turtle" ),  which moves around on  the floor to  display the results
02600	of the  commands.  A  conceptual  version of  the  robot  (a  display
02700	"turtle"), which  is more  flexible and  gives immediate feedback  to
02800	the  student,  has been  implemented  as  a cursor  that  moves  on a
02900	graphics display device. The basic  set of LOGO commands can be  used
03000	individually or can be grouped  together to form procedures, which in
03100	turn can be incorporated in other procedures.
03200	
03300	Chinese  ideograms  have a  very  complicated static  image. However,
03400	they are composed of a  finite number of strokes. Thus one  can think
03500	of the basic  strokes as letters in an alphabet  and the stroke order
03600	as rules of  spelling.   Since the LOGO  turtle can  be commanded  to
03700	move in  any direction  for a variable  distance, it  can be used  to
03800	draw Chinese ideograms.
03900	
04000	
04100	First,  a  set of  LOGO  procedure  was defined  to  draw  the simple
04200	strokes. Then  these procedures were  used as  primitive commands  to
04300	construct  Chinese  ideograms,  one  stroke   at  time.    Using  the
04400	individual ideograms  as a data base, courseware to teach the Chinese
04500	language was designed. Five demonstration lessons  have been designed
04600	to illustrate this teaching methodology.
04700	
04800	
04900	To  learn word  orientation,  the student  can  retrieve any  Chinese
05000	character by typing  the English  equivalence on  the input  console.
05100	The  Chinese character  is  then presented  on  the graphics  display
05200	along with  phonetic romanized pronounciation. Rules for constructing
05300	the character  and the rules  for Chinese  sentence construction  are
05400	taught along  with examples.  The  first lesson shows the  samples of
05500	strokes  and  radicals  for  Chinese  ideograms;  the  second  lesson
05600	presents a sample  of English-Chinese equivalences; the  third lesson
05700	explains  the  rules  for  constructing  descriptive  sentences;  the
05800	fourth lesson gives  rules for constructing  functive sentences;  and
05900	finally, the  fifth lesson  demonstrates simple  question and  answer
06000	types of sentences.
06100	
06200	
06300	With  the addition  of  a graphic  interactive device,  and  an audio
06400	device this  system  can  be  fully  developed in  the  future  as  a
06500	completely functional  CAI (Computer Assisted  Instruction) system.
06600	It  will provide  on-line drill  and practice  in the art  of Chinese
06700	calligraphy;  it  will  present  the  exact   pronounciation  of  the
06800	character;  it  will  teach  the  students  how to  use  the  Chinese
06900	dictionary;  and,   it  will   generate  courseware   to  teach   the
07000	morphological system of Chinese orthography.
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