1 Matching Parameters – Crucial Ideas in Curriculum Design for Teaching Chinese Characters LEE Cher Leng, WANG Hui and WEE Lian Hee Department of Chinese Studies National University of Singapore 1. Introduction The issue on the learning of Chinese characters is a relatively underexplored area of language teaching (though more thoroughly investigated in psycholinguistic research). Yet, orthography is without doubt, central to the Chinese language, and understanding the challenges underlying its acquisition as well as offering solutions are certainly tasks deserving of great attention. It is noteworthy that Chinese orthography does not reflect phonetic segmentation (e.g. English, Spanish or any language that uses a phonetic alphabet like Latin or Cyrillic) nor does it use a syllabary (e.g. Japanese, Hindi, Korean, etc). This makes Chinese orthography distinctly opaque in phonology. That the symbols are abstract makes it opaque semantically too, unless of course, the user becomes aware of each symbolic signification, say 亻 as the radical for 人, which in turn is the character for “person”. Clearly, in modern Chinese orthography, there is much opacity between each Chinese character and its phonology and semantics 1 . In this paper, we propose the recognition of the following parameters in designing a curriculum for teaching Chinese orthography (which is itself a component of teaching Chinese). (1) Parameters in designing curriculum for Chinese Orthography (i) Cognitive development of the learner in question. (ii) Nature of Chinese characters (recognition versus application), (iii) Frequency in the use of a particular character; In the following sections, we shall discuss each parameter in slightly more detail and then proceed to use it as a basis for developing what we believe will be an effective model curriculum. For reference and comparison, we shall refer to the curriculum design currently in use in Singapore 2 . 1 Even with sound and meaning radicals, opacity exists in that such radicals are not always consistent in position nor are they consistent in their corresponding phonation. Also, many characters are devoid of such composition altogether. 2 International pressure on English language acquisition has eroded much of the linguistic environment favorable for learners of the Chinese language in Singapore. Efforts, albeit futile, have been made to arrest