Literature Review
In the field of Chinese character teaching research，there have been many studies done，looking at Chinese character teaching from the perspective of a second-language learner based on psychology and learning achievement theories.Those studies mainly analysed the cognitive patterns of learners in learning Chinese characters（e.g.王碧霞等，1994；Ke，1996；冯丽萍，1998；姜丽萍，1998；陈慧、王魁京，2001；李大遂，2006；鹿士义，2002；王建勤，2005；Grabe，2009）.Grabe’s research indicates that the metalinguistic skills of a language with alphabetic writing system are not readily transferrable to that of a language with a character writing system（Grabe，2009）.In other words，when learners with an alphabetic writing system in their mother tongues start to learn a language with a character writing system，they must establish a new metalinguistic awareness.
The study by Shiyi Lu concludes that，“for an adult whose mother tongue has an alphabetic writing system，the development process of the orthography awareness is gradual.It takes about two years from the initial Chinese character learning to the starting point of orthographic awareness”（鹿士义，2002）.Wang et al.（1994）drew support from the psycholinguistics research results for their study for the first time.They made a dynamic observation on the cognitive process of beginners in reading and memorizing Chinese characters.They observed that there are three stages in the cognitive process：the exploration period，the transition period，and adaptation period，with a gradual deepening process of memorizing Chinese characters，namely，“memory of shape—memory of stroke—memory of radical—memory of grapheme-memory of constituent structure-memory of meaning”（王碧霞等，1994）.
Ke posits that the learner of Chinese as a second language develops orthographic awareness in three developmental stages:the reserve stage，in which the learner cannot decompose the Chinese character components for meanings;the migration stage，in which the learner consciously applies their knowledge of orthographic structure system to differentiate the Chinese character by the sound and meaning;and finally，the components processing stage，the learner can apply a strategy from the system，based on the structure of the sound and meaning of the Chinese character，to guess the meaning and pronunciation of an unknown character(Ke，1996).These studies demonstrated the challenges faced by Chinese language learners from an alphabetic language background.
Other kinds of studies analyse mistakes in Chinese character writing made by second language learners（e.g.孙清顺、张朋朋，1985；Du，1993；范可育，1993；施正宇，2000；高立群，2001；肖奚强，2002；江新、柳燕梅，2004）.Through their studies，the mistakes made by the second language learners，types of mistakes were categorised，and their features and possible causes were analysed.Some researchers hold that this kind of static analysis study lays a foundation for dynamic research in Chinese character learning（施正宇等，2015）.Recently，a study（王秋萍、林福光、张伟，2018）from the perspective of teaching analysed mistakes in Chinese character writing made by second language learners involving strokes，radicals and the structural elements of characters.It concludes that the confusion of standard on making correct judgement in strokes，radicals and structural elements of characters；lack of awareness in correct component proportion and density arrangement，as well as in character writing standard；having difficulty with differentiating graphically resembling characters，have led to writing incorrect and/or non-standard Chinese characters.They advocate deliberately raising the awareness of the writing standard in the second language Chinese learners and training them to be able to identify the writing standard.So that their Chinese character writing accuracy rate and level of standard character writing skills can be improved.
Moreover，some studies also believe that the major cause for the mistakes made in Chinese character writing by second language learners should be the repetition and resemblance in structural elements of characters，and in the way that they are organized.At the primary or even intermediate level，Chinese character teaching should focus on strengthening students’ability in character writing and identifying strokes and components，thus students will be able to achieve the goal of reducing and eliminating mistakes in Chinese character writing（施正宇，2000）.
施正宇（2000）summarized one of the main reasons for the difficulty in Chinese character writing is that“alphabetic and character languages are completely different in mechanism and form，therefore，the unfamiliar writing system is difficult for second language learners of Chinese to adapt to.”The authors believe that there are very few studies done on Chinese character teaching focusing on stroke teaching and standard character writing skill training，and“in Chinese character teaching，the teaching of strokes and their orders is ignored，character writing training is neglected...”（施正宇，2000）.All these are the primary causes for the difficulty in learning Chinese characters.In the cognitive process，the second language learners have no clear concepts of the Chinese character shape，sound，and meaning，due to the fact that they cannot effectively distinguish，decompose Chinese character strokes，and lacking the concept of stroke quantity and visual features of Chinese characters which can make impressions in their brains.
So far，the development of a highly effective Chinese character teaching and learning model that is adaptable to second language learners’cognitive features is a puzzle which urgently awaits to be solved（尉万传，2019）.
Comparative studies on the learning strategies（e.g.Zhao and Jiang，2002）adopted by second language learners examine the strategies voluntarily adopted by the learner in the process of character learning，and their effects.A study by赵果、江新（2002）discovered that“the glyph strategy”is the inflexible practice of the glyph or the memorization of the glyph image，lacking the practice which connects the sound，the character，and the meaning.It is a commonly adopted strategy by second language learners with an alphabetic writing system as their mother tongue at the initial stage of their Chinese learning.This strategy not only is helpless for those second language learners in their character learning，but also confuses them about the concepts in characters and characters with resemblances.The core reason for this is that at the initial stage of learning，those learners look at Chinese characters as pictures with no stroke order，no logical connections and“those pictures”can only be memorized mechanically.
In view of the above，scholarly studies in the field of Chinese language teaching and learning have mainly focused on observing，from a cognitive perspective，students’Chinese character learning process，character writing mistakes and learning strategies.It has been however well witnessed in teaching practices over the past years that the difficulties of Chinese character writing had often caused students’stressful feelings which in return further increased their anxiety experience in learning Chinese characters.All this leads to an understanding that strategies to ease the learners’psychological and emotional stresses at the early stage of character writing acquisition and to stimulate their interest in Chinese language play an important role in the teaching of Chinese characters.Thus far，however，these are the aspects of Chinese language teaching that have received little scholarly attention.Given this，the chapter will constitute an empirical reference for the teaching of Chinese characters.