Investigating the Student Perspective on the Present and Future of Teaching Chinese Characters Online

While advances in online learning tools meant that students could still virtually attend classes after the COVID-19 pandemic came to a head in early 2020, students studying CFL (Chinese as a foreign language) are faced with specific challenges in this move to at-distance learning, namely in acquiring Chinese characters. Due to the vast number of Chinese characters and the widely reported difficulty in learning them, students generally spend much time focusing on the written aspect of the language, which is necessary for developing both reading and writing skills of Chinese. Apart from missing an instructor’s real-time guidance and feedback on handwriting practice, typing somewhat replaced handwriting in the classroom, with mixed reviews from students. This chapter examines the present and future of teaching Chinese characters online from the student perspective, with data collected in the form of questionnaires and interviews from English-speaking countries worldwide. The chapter consolidates this student feedback and provides practical suggestions for online CFL curricula.