November 24, 2004 ? Korea University said yesterday that a test on Chinese characters will become a graduation requirement for students entering this year. The students can take the test at any time during their stay at the school.
“China has become an economic giant, but our students are less and less competent in the language,” Kim Chang-bae, education support manager of Korea University, said. “Proficiency in Chinese characters is essential for understanding the Korean language.” He said large business groups, such as Samsung and SK, have recently begun looking at Chinese character proficiency in their employment criteria.
The first test, on which students must score a minimum of 60 percent, is scheduled to take place Saturday, and the university is now taking applications. Four tests are planned next year.
S’pore’s guidelines
S’pore gov’t approves changes in teaching Mandarin
From next year, Chinese language lessons will shift its focus from memorising characters to communication skills and reading.
Songs and even Chinese comics are expected to become instructional materials.
And a modular approach to primary Chinese education will be in place by 2008.
Under the modular approach, all students will take the same core Chinese lessons.
But students who have little exposure to the Chinese language will take bridging modules which focus on listening and speaking skills at Primary 1 and 2.
Students who need additional support can take reinforcement modules at Primary 3 and 4.
Those who display ability in the language can take enrichment modules throughout their primary education.
Schools can determine their own Chinese language and English language subject time allocation.
For example, Tao Nan School will implement two additional Chinese language periods per week next year.
These two periods will replace the time allocated for one English and one Science lessons.
PSLE examinations for the Chinese language will also change by 2010.
Project work and presentations are likely to be components of the overall assessment.
There will also be a shift to school-based assessment instead of a centralized examination system….
wide-ranging discussion on writing Mandarin and the ‘threat’ of English
Various scholars discuss ???????????????. Some of the participants mouth the usual alarmist, nationalist nonsense common in the PRC. But there are also some who take a different approach:
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Here’s a machine English translation
Ministry releases character list for Taiwanese
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404
I try to keep the structure of my site clear and my links valid, so chances are visitors to pinyin.info haven’t visited an invalid page here. (If you have, please let me know so I can fix it.)
Usually, when a browser encounters an invalid address, a “404” message will be displayed. You’re probably familiar with these; in Internet Explorer they say something like “The page cannot be found. The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable….”
Some webmasters, however, like to play around with these messages, such as the popular spoof that read “These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed.”
Pinyin.info has its own customized 404 page. Perhaps the reference — an homage to my favorite band, Talking Heads — will be too obscure for lots of my visitors, but I hope you like the page anyway.
Tripitaka Koreana
A story about the digitalization of important Buddhist scriptures in South Korea led me to the website of the Tripitaka Koreana.
Something on that site struck me:
By locating and compiling the variant Chinese characters used in the Taejangkyong and then distinguishing the standard characters from the variants, we have been able to identify approximately 50,000 variant Chinese characters. By 2001, we hope to publish an electronic Chinese character dictionary that would include 40,000 or so of the variants that are commonly used in the Taejangkyong.
(emphasis added)
A lot of sources say (incorrectly) that there are some 50,000 Chinese characters. But here’s a text with that many variant characters alone!
Also, the search page features a download link to the all-important Arial Unicode font. If you don’t have this font, you need it.
Taiwanese skit competition 2
The skits from the second day of the Taiwanese-language school play competition (see previous blog entry) were not as retro as the previous day’s had been. The skits from the junior high students were instead much more “modern,” which I take as a very good sign. On the other hand, the scripts for the plays on the second day were also predominantly — sometimes exclusively (though that doesn’t work well) — in Chinese characters.