开始给十年级中文班讲“汉字六书”，也就是汉字造字法。我觉得，汉字虽然数目繁多，看起来也复杂难记，但只要了解其基本造字规律，就能掌握和认识更多汉字。因此，在十年级学生毕业离开中文学校之前，希望他们能有这方面是知识。本学年，十年级学生也将做相关课题作业。下面是有关“汉字造字法”的内容。

汉字六书（造字法）

Formation of Characters

Main articles: Chinese character classification and radical (Chinese character)

The early stages of the development of Chinese characters were dominated by pictograms, in which meaning was expressed directly by the shapes. The development of the script, both to cover words for abstract concepts and to increase the efficiency of writing, has led to the introduction of numerous non-pictographic characters.

The various types of character were first classified c. 100 CE by the Chinese linguist Xu Shen, whose etymological dictionary Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字/说文解字) divides the script into six categories, the liùshū’ (六書/六书). While the categories and classification are occasionally problematic and arguably fail to reflect the complete nature of the Chinese writing system, the system has been perpetuated by its long history and pervasive use.[6]

Excerpt from a 1436 primer on Chinese characters

1. Pictograms (象形字 xiàngxíngzì)

Contrary to popular belief, pictograms make up only a small portion of Chinese characters. While characters in this class derive from pictures, they have been standardized, simplified, and stylised to make them easier to write, and their derivation is therefore not always obvious. Examples include 日 (rì) for “sun”, 月 (yuè) for “moon”, and 木 (mù) for “tree”.

There is no concrete number for the proportion of modern characters that are pictographic in nature; however, Xu Shen (c. 100 CE) estimated that 4% of characters fell into this category.

2. Ideograph (指事字, zhǐshìzì)

Also called a simple indicative, simple ideograph, or ideogram, characters of this sort either add indicators to pictographs to make new meanings, or illustrate abstract concepts directly. For instance, while 刀 (dāo) is a pictogram for “knife”, placing an indicator in the knife makes 刃 (rèn), an ideogram for “blade”. Other common examples are 上 (shàng) for “up” and 下 (xià) for “down”. This category is small, as most concepts can be represented by characters in other categories.

3. Logical aggregrates (會意字/会意字, Huìyìzì)

Also translated as associative compounds, characters of this sort combine pictograms to symbolize an abstract concept. For instance, 木 (mu) is a pictogram of a tree, and putting two 木 together makes 林 (lin), meaning forest. Combining 日 (rì) sun and 月 (yuè) moon makes 明 (míng) bright, which is traditionally interpreted as symbolizing the combination of sun and moon as the natural sources of light.

Xu Shen estimated that 13% of characters fall into this category.

4. Pictophonetic compounds (形聲字/形声字, Xíngshēngzì)^[1][2]

Also called semantic-phonetic compounds, or phono-semantic compounds, this category represents the largest group of characters in modern Chinese. Characters of this sort are composed of two parts: a pictograph, which suggests the general meaning of the character, and a phonetic part, which is derived from a character pronounced in the same way as the word the new character represents.

Examples are 河 (hé) river, 湖 (hú) lake, 流 (liú) stream, 沖 (chōng) riptide, 滑 (huá) slippery. All these characters have on the left a radical of three dots, which is a simplified pictograph for a water drop, indicating that the character has a semantic connection with water; the right-hand side in each case is a phonetic indicator. For example, in the case of 沖 (chōng), the phonetic indicator is 中 (zhōng), which by itself means middle. In this case it can be seen that the pronunciation of the character has diverged from that of its phonetic indicator; this process means that the composition of such characters can sometimes seem arbitrary today. Further, the choice of radicals may also seem arbitrary in some cases; for example, the radical of 貓 (māo) cat is 豸 (zhì), originally a pictograph for worms, but in characters of this sort indicating an animal of any sort.

Xu Shen (c. 100 CE) placed approximately 82% of characters into this category, while in the Kangxi Dictionary (1716 CE) the number is closer to 90%, due to the extremely productive use of this technique to extend the Chinese vocabulary.

5. Associate Transformation (轉注字/转注字, Zhuǎnzhùzì)

Characters in this category originally represented the same meaning but have bifurcated through orthographic and often semantic drift. For instance, 考 (kǎo) to verify and 老 (lǎo) old were once the same character, meaning “elderly person”, but detached into two separate words. Characters of this category are rare, so in modern systems this group is often omitted or combined with others.

6. Borrowing (假借字, Jiǎjièzì)

Also called phonetic loan characters, this category covers cases where an existing character is used to represent an unrelated word with similar pronunciation; sometimes the old meaning is then lost completely, as with characters such as 自 (zì), which has lost its original meaning of nose completely and exclusively means oneself, or 萬 (wan), which originally meant spider but is now used only in the sense of ten thousand.

This technique has become uncommon, since there is considerable resistance to changing the meaning of existing characters. However, it has been used in the development of written forms of dialects, notably Cantonese and Taiwanese in Hong Kong and Taiwan, due to the amount of dialectal vocabulary which historically has had no written form and thus lacks characters of its own.

你在中文学校学到了什么？

很多华人家长送孩子到社区中文学校，是希望子女保持中国语言文化能力。但学生们到底能在中文学校学到什么？是否符合家长的期待？是否符合当代社会对语言教学的要求？就需要学校管理者、教师、家长和学生们对美国总体外语教学要求和趋势有所了解。

让我们看看美国外语课主题教学的五大主题——自我，家庭，学校，社区，世界。中文学校的教学内容和主题是否也涵盖了这些方面？或者教师要善于利用现有课文提炼出这些内容。

对传统教学方式和21世纪语言教学方式进行比较，利于中文学校取长补短：

• 传统教学(Traditional Teaching) Vs. 主题教学 (Thematic Unit Teaching)
  • 传统教学：每课书之间无关联，语法、词汇与生活语境脱节
  • 主题教学：围绕一个主题和实用语境，宽展词汇和知识面
• 中文学校的教学方式和课本迄今还比较传统
• 但在我们学过的课本知识中，也可以总结出与这些主题相关的内容
• 怎样在今后应用与这些主题有关的中文知识？会不会口头解说或写文描述？

学生们在中文学校上中文课，不是为了完成与实用脱离的作业或应付几次考试，而应真正掌握使用中文的本领。要验证学生们的学习成果，可看看学生们能否做到这些？

自我(Myself)——介绍自己，兴趣爱好特长，表达自己的想法和志向。

家庭(Families)——介绍家庭成员、宠物、活动等，家庭关系（中国与美国的异同），伦理道德观念。

学校(Schools)——介绍你的学校（美国学校、中文学校、其他校内外社团等），老师、同学、朋友，学校的课程科目、环境、体育、文艺等活动，自己在校表现（喜欢或不喜欢哪些科目/活动），将来的学习志向（大学、专业等），其他学习资源（图书馆、网络等）。

社区(Communities)——可按地域或文化族裔来划分。

1）住地社区：介绍住家及周围地区的特点（地理、人口等），著名观光景点等。

2）族裔社区：是否认同自己的华人文化背景，介绍中华历史文化风俗，介绍本地和美国华裔社区简况

世界(The World)——要会从几个方面关注并介绍：

1. 地理方位：各国位置，语言，人口，国家或城镇名称，风景特点，物产等；
2. 人文历史：历史故事，政治文学科学哲学等名人和贡献，现代文化和人类特征等；
3. 对比：尤其要会比较美国、中国、与其他国家地区的异同；
4. 每个国家或地区对现代世界的影响。

学生开讲第一课

9月18日是中文学校本学期的第二次课，我们十年级甲班的学生讲课按计划开始了。前一周老师已将“学生教学备课指南发给大家，学生们还抽签分了组，每一到两名学生负责准备一课书，课本的12课书的课文都将由学生们主讲，旨在锻炼学生的中文表达和运用能力。

郭紫悦和程旸同学主动要求准备第一课“我的电脑”，这课内容接近现代生活并不难，但打头炮讲第一课则需要勇气。两位同学准备得挺充分，除了读课文和解说生字生词，还准备了游戏及教具，组织全班分两队进行抓字比赛。这两位同学还将在9月25日讲解第一课的阅读材料“电子计算机的世界”。

老师发给全班同学列有学生姓名和讲课日期的“学生课文教学演示评估表”，该表的作用：1）每周该由哪些学生讲哪课一目了然；2）在每组学生讲课时，其他同学要为他们的表现评分并记录在此表上。评估项目分为4项：准备、发音、课题管理、趣味性。

希望同学们听了其他学生讲课后，能够取长补短，把各自的课文准备得更好！

牛顿中文学校于2011年9月11日开始了新的学年。欢迎同学们和家长们！

十年级 甲班：319教室，2：00-3：30pm

工艺绘画班：224教室，3：40-5：00pm，适合5-8岁儿童

请同学们准时到校，带齐书本文具，遵守课堂纪律和学校规章。