Chinese Etymology: Learn to read and write Chinese by learning Chinese word roots » Educator’s Consciousness

The Interplay of Theory and Verification

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:10:53 +0000

The Interplay of Theory and Verification

Jason Tyler Gong

P.O. Box 4794, Diamond Bar, CA 91765

Feb. 17, 2009

Dr. Howard Gillman

Dean, College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089

Dear Dr. Gillman:

Thank you very much for your kind letter of January 20, 2009. Thank you again for forwarding my letter to some experts in your university. Before they finalize some comments or a verdict on my work, I would like to take an opportunity to make my points more clear for both you and those experts.

The central pillar of the current paradigm on teaching a second language is using a Communicative Approach (emphasizing jigsaw, information gap, Bingo, interview, problem solving… techniques). However, there are three major differences between our program and that approach.

The communicative is our end, not our means. Yet, the communicative approach is, obviously, also the means of the current paradigm.
A consensus that the first language is kind of a learning obstacle for learning a second language is an un-stated premise of the current paradigm. Thus, many class rooms of ESL have a sign “English Only.” On the contrary, the first language must be a springboard for acquiring the second language in our program.
A consensus that a second language is always more difficult to acquire than the first language (the mother tongue) is, also, an un-stated premise of the current paradigm. However, our program addresses or faces off the following two issues squarely. Student A’s (SA) first language is language A (LA). Student B’s (SB) native language is language B (LB).
1. Can SA acquire LB (second language for SA) with less effort than he acquired LA (his mother tongue)?
2. Can SA acquire LB with less effort than SB acquires LB (SB’s native language)?
Our answers for both issues (questions) are affirmative, especially if LB is Chinese language. Of course, our answer must be supported by a valid theoretical framework, and I will discuss it in the later part of this letter. In addition to a theoretical system or persuasion, our statements can be easily tested.

In our Chinese language learning program, it is divided into five (5) steps:

Learning the word form (able to hand-write each and every [all 60,000] Chinese word after glancing it for 10 seconds).
Learning the word meaning (able to dissect and to decode the meaning of all words).
Learning the meaning of composite words (word phrases and sentences).
Learning the entire phonetic bandwidth of Chinese verbal language, and 250 four-tone that encompass it all.
Marrying the phonetic to the written words.

Each step can be tested. However, the test on the first step can be the determining test for the entire system, and it can be done with very little effort. The following is my suggested testing program.

This test will consist of three comparison groups.
1. Group A — student who had no Chinese language background previously but has studied Chinese language for one (1) semester under your program.
2. Group B — student who had no Chinese language background previously and will study under our program for 15 hours, 3 hours a day for 5 days.
3. Group C — professor of physics or anyone with a great analytic mind while he is not knowing any Chinese word. This is the control group as it is a measurement for the difficulty of the test.
Thirty Chinese words will be selected from a current Chinese newspaper randomly and each word is flashed to a screen for 10 seconds. Persons in this test must not copy the word during the flash but try to duplicate them with hand-writing after the flashing. Then, the test score will be compared.
In order to prevent any statistics out-liar, each group should have three persons.

While the above-mentioned test can be easily set up and be verified, I would like to discuss the theoretical reasons for our claims.

Doing or learning the things the second time should always be easier unless the first experience is not a help and becomes an obstacle.
Learning the first language which is quite difficult is because of the following reasons:
1. Baby’s brain is not fully matured.
2. As the baby’s brain is a blank sheet, there is no memory anchor (association ) to help it to memorize. Every new data must be anchored by repeated drilling. Yes, by drilling literately.
3. For a first grader, he or she did acquire the verbal part of the mother tongue. That is, the verbal language becomes the anchor for his learning the written language. Yet, the logic of the language still needs to be drilled into him.
In fact, learning any language (the first or the second) is about to acquire a set of data (words, vocabularies, grammar, phonetic of words, etc.). Acquiring means memorizing. That is, learning a language (the first or the second) is about,
1. Data management:
  1. a chaotic data set
  2. an organized data system
2. Memory management:
  1. Memorizing by repetition, the drilling.
  2. Memorizing with anchors (logic, genealogy, self-revealing rules, etc.)

As the meaning of all Chinese words (each and every) is self-revealing through a set of word roots and a clearly defined genealogy, the Chinese written language can be learned without the help (the anchor) of the verbal portion. That is, it can be learned without a language environment, and it takes much less effort than the student used to learn his mother tongue (the verbal part of his first language).

For the Chinese verbal language, there are only 250 four-tones (1,000 sounds or phonemes) and absolutely no more. That is, not a single Chinese word’s sound (pronunciation) can escape from the net of this 250 four-tone bandwidth. For a determined student, he can acquire the entire Chinese verbal bandwidth in weeks. Learning Chinese verbal language as the second language with this bandwidth system takes much less effort than native Chinese learns his mother tongue.

With the knowledge of Chinese written language and the entire Chinese verbal bandwidth as anchors, the Chinese language (verbal part or the marriage of written and verbal part) as a second language can be acquired with much less effort than he learned his mother tongue and with much less effort than native Chinese learns it as his first language, especially while a native Chinese does not learn his own language as an axiomatic language.

In many senses, learning Chinese language with repetition is like driving thousands of nails into a concrete floor. A few determined students might be able to endure this type of torture, but most of them (perhaps 85%) will get carpal tunnel in no time, that is, giving up. Furthermore, Chinese verbal language (with only 1,000 phonemes in its entire system) is one of the easiest verbal language to learn in the world. And, many American students who studied Chinese language for years can speak but remain as semi-illiterate as they are not truly able to read and write. Furthermore, in the history of human engineering, either constructing a building or composing a music, it is very hard to find one example that the end can also be a good means. Using the end as means signifies the lacking of anchor, of springboard and of any help.

I do have a presentation (in MS Power Point). It has many examples to make the points of our theory and practice easily understandable for a person who knows not a single Chinese word. It is a two-hour presentation. If you are interested in it, I would like to present it to you.

Sincerely yours,

Jason Tyler Gong

Note: For K-12 system, the test should consist of the following:

This test will consist of three comparison groups.
1. Group A — student who had no Chinese language background previously but has studied Chinese language for one (1) year under GCLE program.
2. Group B — student who had no Chinese language background previously and will study under our program for 15 hours, 3 hours a day for 5 days.
3. Group C — professor of physics or anyone with a great analytic mind while he is not knowing any Chinese word. This group is very important as it is a measurement for the difficulty of the test.
Thirty Chinese words will be selected from a current Chinese newspaper randomly and each word is flashed to a screen for 10 seconds. Persons in this test must not copy the word during the flash but try to duplicate them with hand-writing after the flashing. Then, the test score will be compared.
In order to prevent any statistics out-liar, each group should have three persons.
In order to measure the scope (the area of it encompasses) of this test, Group A and B should consist of three levels, one 4th grader, one 8th grader and one 12th grader.

Henry’s Announcement

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:08:46 +0000

Announcement by Henry Gong

Henry Miles Gong

P.O. Box 4794

Diamond Bar, CA 91765

9-29-08

Dr. John D. Welty

California State University, Fresno

5241 N. Maple Ave.

Fresno, CA 93740

Dear Dr. John D. Welty:

My name is Henry Miles Gong, the younger brother of Jason Tyler Gong who wrote you on June 22, 2008 about his effort of learning the Chinese written language to the proficiency of being able to read any Chinese newspaper in 89 days of study from an initial condition of not knowing a single Chinese word. Thank you for forwarding his letter to Dr. Chris Golston.

On September 12, 2008, Dr. Golston wrote to Jason and stated that he was unable to review Jason’s work in detail and commented that Jason must have either a good iconic memory or is skillful at mapping form and meaning and that it proved nothing of Jason’s grammar, listening, and speaking skills.

With a cursory review of the documents posted on Jason’s web site (http://www.chinese-etymology.com), Dr. Golston could have discovered that Jason purposefully left out the verbal portion of the Chinese language in order

to prove that the Chinese written language does not require a language environment to be learned,
to show Jason’s initial condition of not knowing any Chinese language.

Also, to conclude that Jason’s ability of mastering Chinese written words in 89 days comes from exceptional mapping skills or amazing memory without a detailed review on Jason’s work or meeting him in person not only disregards the sincerity and honesty of the Chinese media’s reporting (5 Newspapers and 3 TV stations) which praises Jason after testing him on three separate occasions in open forums, but also discredits the competence of the Chinese scholars who made up the official testing committee. Seemingly, Dr. Golston’s conclusion is a result of an improper academic procedure.

With the above facts, I would like to request a further review from you and your university for the following reasons:

Jason’s work has very significant academic importance, and it should not be discounted by an opinion.
More than 89 days has lapsed since Jason sent you a letter. For him to respond to Dr. Golston’s opinion will not prove his point one way or another as he succeeded at his first feat in that amount of time. On the other hand, I still have my innocence in terms of Chinese language, although I have been munching some Chinese characters since I arrived in California on June 4, 2008 from Virginia. The initial state of my ability on Chinese language can be easily tested and determined, and I’m willing to take such an examination from your university.
Jason is either not alone in his exceptional gifts (iconic memory), or that the Chinese written language can be acquired by any committed American high school student as a knowledge. In general, most languages are learned as a living habit, not as a knowledge. What Jason did was to demonstrate that Chinese written language can be learned as a knowledge similar to Geometry or Chemistry (a language environment is not required), and I am happy to offer myself to demonstrate this point for a second time.

If Dr. Chris Golston’s comment is a challenge to Jason, I would like to take up this challenge. In fact, I would like to challenge the world to review the fact that Chinese written language can be mastered (to an ability of reading Chinese newspapers) in 80 days by any committed American high school student, and no language environment is needed.

Sincerely Yours,
Henry Gong

This announcement was sent out to the following university presidents:

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Sacramento, CA 95841

Gab’s amazing achievement

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:03:29 +0000

My niece Gab’ (age 9 in 2009) is a fourth grader in Kentucky. She came to stay with her father in California for the Christmas holiday (from December 24, 2008 to January 3, 2009). During these eleven days, she studied Chinese word roots about one hour a day. The following is her study log.

December 26, 2008, 13 word roots, studying time — 30 minutes.
December 27, 28 word roots, studying time — one hour.
December 28, 39 word roots, studying time — one hour.
December 29, 80 word roots, studying time — 90 minutes.
December 30, no study.
December 31, 60 word roots, studying time — one hour.
January 1, 2009, 30 sound modules, studying time — one hour.
January 2, 30 sound modules, studying time — one hour.
January 3, review and test, time — 90 minutes.

After only 8.5 hours of study, she passed a word-writing test (copying 30 words). Her test sheet is attached below. They are difficult words even for a university student who finished 100 hours of Chinese course in an American university (see note below). In terms of our syllabus, the first segment is to learn the Chinese word form (in 30 hours, students should be able to duplicate any Chinese character with handwriting after glancing it for 10 seconds). As she only completed 1/4 of the segment one program, her test was copying the words, not dictating them. Yet, she only missed one stroke for two words . In fact, she should, now, be able to duplicate any word which has 10 strokes or less after glancing it for 10 seconds.

Note: There is a major difference between writing and drawing Chinese characters although they are ideographs. For writing, Chinese characters must be written in some kind of stroke sequence while drawing can often start from any part of the graph. For drawing those 30 test words correctly and quickly, it will be a major task even for a professor of physics. Those 30 test words are listed below. If you do not know how to write Chinese words, you can try to copy them yourself and make a comparison with Gab’s work. There is an easier task. Can you find out which two words are missing one stroke in Gab’s work? Furthermore, she finished the test in 20 minutes while her controlling of spacing and word roots proportion was needing more practices

Gab’s personal and contact information is available at: Department of Education of Kentucky

Capital Plaza Tower
500 Mero Street
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601

Anyone who is interested in knowing more about this amazing story (especially in terms of academic analysis), please contact the Department of Education of Kentucky.