Learning Chinese written characters visually. A case study- Character workshop with Finnish young children

Abstract

We are living in the age of globalization and a picture of the world. The ability to understand and communicate through visuals is increasingly important. Taking Visual Literacy in the account asks us to learn how to look at visual language, how to communicate with visual reference, and so on.

Character workshop is a case study of learning Chinese written character visually, which means taking the Chinese written character as a visual language, holistic and not universal; taking the critical visual method and social semiotic analysis as methods. The purpose of the study is to enhance children’s comprehension through reading and writing the signs critically and creatively.

Through learning, children developed their understandings on culture signs through seeing that each sign (both signifier and signified) can be interpreted differently, (read). At the same time, children also learned how to communicate their ideas through creating images and new signs based on the compositional structure of Chinese written characters,(write).