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This thesis introduces spatial filtering, which is a technique to extend the time step size beyond the conventional stability limit for the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method, at the expense of transforming field nodes between the spatial domain and the discrete spatial-frequency domain and removing undesired spatial-frequency components at every FDTD update cycle. The spatially-filtered FDTD method is demonstrated to be almost as accurate as and more efficient than the conventional FDTD method via theories and numerical examples. Then, this thesis combines spatial filtering and an existing subgridding scheme to form the spatially-filtered subgridding scheme. The spatially-filtered subgridding scheme is more efficient than existing subgridding schemes because the former allows the time step size used in the dense mesh to be larger than the dense mesh CFL limit. However, trade-offs between accuracy and efficiency are required in complicated structures.

This thesis introduces spatial filtering, which is a technique to extend the time step size beyond the conventional stability limit for the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method, at the expense of transforming field nodes between the spatial domain and the discrete spatial-frequency domain and removing undesired spatial-frequency components at every FDTD update cycle. The spatially-filtered FDTD method is demonstrated to be almost as accurate as and more efficient than the conventional FDTD method via theories and numerical examples. Then, this thesis combines spatial filtering and an existing subgridding scheme to form the spatially-filtered subgridding scheme. The spatially-filtered subgridding scheme is more efficient than existing subgridding schemes because the former allows the time step size used in the dense mesh to be larger than the dense mesh CFL limit. However, trade-offs between accuracy and efficiency are required in complicated structures.

本論文藉由瞭解在臺學習華語的外籍學生對於兩岸口音的看法，以供臺灣華語教師在教學現場應使用何種口音作為參考。研究對象是臺灣北部某國立大學的華語文教學中心中級班以上的外籍學生。研究方法包含假貌相比測驗法（Matched-Guise technique）、問卷調查和焦點團體訪談三項研究工具，蒐集研究資料，作為分析與討論問題的依據。 經過研究實施與資料分析，歸結研究結果如下：（一）多數外籍學生具有聽辨兩岸口音差異之能力；（二）兩岸口音各有其擁護者；（三）兩岸口音的印象差異，除了在聲母、韻母及聲調，如：捲舌音、輕聲及兒化韻等等的差別以外，說話的語氣，如：聲音的大小、說話的速度、聲音的高低等，也會影響外籍學生對兩岸口音的印象；（四）外籍學生在選擇華語口音時所考慮的要素為「不同學習階段的需求」、「易學」、「當地文化與朋友」、「好聽」以及「較具親和力」等五項因素；（五）本研究的外籍學生認為在現階段應學習臺灣口音的華語，奠立良好的口音基礎，進而拓展聽力寬度，然後再進入多元口音輸出的階段。 最後根據調查結果提出華語教學上的啟發與後續研究建議，以供華語教師、學校行政單位以及教學研究者在兩岸華語口音方面的參考。 / This study aims to investigate how CFL(Chinese as a foreign language) students in Taiwan view the accent of Mandarin Chinese produced by Taiwanese and Mainlanders. The participants of the study are from a university in Taipei city, and they are at intermediate-level and above. The research methods adopted in the study include Matched-Guise technique, questionnaire survey, and focus group interview. The major findings are: (1) Most CFL students have the ability to distinguish the accent of Mandarin Chinese produced by Taiwanese and Mainlanders; (2) the two accents have their own supporters; (3) CFL students’ impressions of the two accents include not only initials, finals and tones, but also volume, speed and pitch. Another interesting finding is that most CFL students in Taiwan want to learn Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent because (1) Taiwanese accent is easier to learn; (2) CFL students in Taiwan want to interact with Taiwanese and learn Taiwanese culture. When CFL students in Taiwan become high intermediate or advanced students, they also wish to be exposed to Mandarin with mainlander’s accent in order to expand their repertoire of the Chinese language. At the end of the thesis, pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research are included.

漢字對於拼音語言背景的華語學習者而言，一直是較難掌握的內容，他們在初學華語的階段，很快就需要記認與書寫與母語文字系統差異極大的漢字，所以經常遇到困難。正由於缺乏相關背景知識，華語學習者的漢字識別和心理認知歷程必然與母語者有所差異。然而語言離不開書寫與閱讀，若要增進中文能力，就必須提升本身的字彙量。漢字總數以形聲字數量最多，形聲字主要可以拆解為聲旁及義旁兩個部分，功能上多以表音及表義區分。關於母語學童的識字研究，常以「聲旁一致性」作為討論主題，透過唸名作業探討學童的識字過程，學者發現這種中文的形音對應關係是隨著學習歷程發展出來的，年級越高的學童，越能看到顯著效果，與識字量和閱讀能力的關聯密不可分。至於成人華語學習者，是否也能在學習經驗中累積出這種形音一致性的對應概念，是以往較少細究的內容。本論文關注此一議題，進行記錄眼動的心理學實驗，探討形音一致性高低對不同程度華語學習者在辨識單字的處理效率和其背後的認知意義。 　　論文實驗採用漢字聽讀整合的作業形式，請受試者聽取經由耳機播放的語音訊息，在電腦螢幕上點選對應的字形，藉由眼動儀器的記錄，分析眼睛對於目標字和無關字的凝視比例變化。實驗操弄目標字的聲旁一致性，並依照中文能力將受試者分成高、低程度二組，高程度組12人，低程度組10人。除了聽讀作業以外，另外採用語言水平問卷、漢字學習策略問卷、中文年級認字量表以及短文閱讀的眼動實驗做為額外的評量工具，以量測受試者主觀和客觀判斷的中文程度，提供後文討論對外漢字教學的實際建議。 　　實驗結果顯示中文能力高低與聲旁一致性高低對凝視比例具有影響。高程度組呈現預期的聲旁一致性效果，於目標字語音播放後的300至500毫秒之間呈現顯著差異，高一致目標字的凝視比例顯著高於低一致目標字。這個結果表示隨著學習經驗的積累，即使是拼音文字背景的學習者，也會因為識字量增加而逐漸具備形聲字聲旁一致性的認知能力。低程度組雖然未獲得如預期的一致性效果，但卻發現聲旁結合度效果，受試者對於同一聲旁越多的字，其凝視比率高於同一聲旁較少的字，足見低程度組雖然字彙量遠不如高程度組，但已經掌握部分漢字結構表徵，只是更加仰賴字形訊息，所以聲旁結合度影響較大。本文結果顯示，對拼音語言的華語學習者而言，形聲字的辨認也並非絕對的一字一音，而是受到語音成分介入。本文最後提出如何利用此研究結果於對外漢字教學及教材編製上，以供後續教學研究參考。 / Learning to read and write Chinese characters is hard for CFL (Chinese as a foreign language) students, especially for those whose native languages are alphabetic languages, would face to a totally different writing system-“Hanzi” at the beginning stage of learning; therefore, it would be a real challenge because of the complexity. Due to lack of background knowledge, CFL students may have a different cognitive process from Chinese native speakers. Nevertheless, to improve language skills and abilities, it is necessary to raise the amount of their Chinese lexicon. Phonetic compounds comprise most of the Chinese characters and can be divided into two parts-a phonetic radical and a semantic radical, which denote the character’s possible pronunciation and meaning. Researchers have found that “phonetic consistency” affects the latency of naming from Chinese native speakers. For elementary school children, the higher grade they are in, the consistency effect is more significant, which related to their learning process of word-recognition. As for CFL learners, we know few from them. The present study focuses on the topic of phonetic consistency, manipulating the eye-tracking methods to investigate the processing efficiency and cognitive meanings from CFL learners of two different levels. The study utilized visual world paradigm of eye tracking methods through a reading and listening task. Subjects would hear a sentence and would be asked to choose the target character from the four on the screen. Fixation proportions of target and unrelated characters were counted in each time bin. The experiment manipulated phonetic consistency value and two groups of subjects participated in this research: the high level group (12 people) and the low level group (10 people), whose native languages were all alphabetic languages. Except for the listening and reading task, we used questionnaires, character recognition test and reading comprehension test to judge subjects’ Chinese reading ability. Results showed that Chinese ability and phonetic consistency affected fixation proportions. For the high level group, the proportion of target was higher in high consistency condition than the low consistency condition after the target onset. Significant consistency effect was found between 300 milliseconds and 500 milliseconds as expectation. For the low level group, there were opposite results compared with high level group and tended to show “phonetic combinability effect” between 300 milliseconds and 500 milliseconds. Subjects had more fixations on those characters with the amount of the same phonetic radicals. It seemed that the visual information attracted more than sound information. These results implicated that CFL students with alphabetic language background have accumulated the phonetic consistency concepts of Chinese phonograms after years of learning; in other words, the phonetic information of Chinese characters also involved in the word-recognition processing for CFL students. At the end, we provided some advices for teaching Chinese as a foreign language based on the present findings.

<p>Service learning has been proposed as a widespread educational movement that merges academic work with real-life community service activities that encourages students to reflect and think critically about their experiences. As a pedagogical tool for second language acquisition, the greatest benefit of utilizing service learning activities results in the fact that it creates connections to the target language community and provides authentic experiences for target language use. Although service-learning has been extensively implemented into language programs such as Spanish and English as a Second Language (ESL), it is still in its infancy with Chinese second language learners.</p><p><br></p> <p>This dissertation examines the effects and outcomes of service-learning involvement on the advanced Chinese learners towards language acquisition, cultural understanding, and community engagement. The study was conducted in a Midwest university with 30 students from a variety of educational and cultural backgrounds.The data was collected through pre-/post-survey, observation and reflective journals. Findings indicated that the service-learning experiences enhanced and enriched students' Chinese language learning. Additional benefits to the students included increasing their knowledge of Chinese culture and history, developing a higher motivation for community engagement and transformative learning, and forming connections to people and community beyond the classroom. However, differences were also found in students' service-learning experiences and outcomes based on gender, race, and cultural backgrounds. Future directions of Chinese service-learning in the emerging fields were discussed as promising avenues for future Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) research and practice.</p>

The study explored whether or not to delay introducing Chinese characters as part of first year Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) courses in post-secondary institutions in the U.S. Topics investigated: a) timing structures of current CFL programs in the U.S.; b) CFL teachers’ and students’ beliefs and rationales of an appropriate timing to introduce characters; c) CFL teachers’ and students’ beliefs about the importance and difficulty of different Chinese language skills; and d) CFL teachers’ and students’ beliefs about the requirement of handwriting in beginning-level CFL courses. Data were collected through a large-scale online student survey with 914 students and a large-scale online teacher survey with 192 teachers. At the same time, a total of 21 students and five teachers from a delayed character introduction (DCI) program and an immediate character introduction (ICI) program were interviewed. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyze the data. Results indicate that the majority of CFL programs did not delay teaching characters; most of teachers and students believed that speaking and listening were the most important skills and reading and especially writing characters were the most difficult skills; and most of teachers and students did not favor alternative methods to replace the handwriting of characters even though they considered handwriting to be the most difficult skill. With few studies carried out to investigate the timing issue of character teaching, results from the study provided foundational knowledge for CFL educators to better understand CFL teaching and learning in general, along with the teaching and learning of written Chinese characters, in particular.

Dans ce travail, on s'intéresse à plusieurs aspects de l'approximation numérique des systèmes hyperboliques de lois de conservation. La première partie est dédiée à la construction de schémas d'ordre élevé sur des maillages 2D non structurés. On développe une nouvelle technique de reconstruction de gradients basée sur l'écriture de deux schémas MUSCL sur deux maillages imbriqués. Cette procédure augmente le nombre d'inconnues numériques, mais permet d'approcher la solution avec une grande précision. Dans la deuxième partie, on étudie la stabilité des schémas d'ordre élevé. On montre dans un premier temps que les inégalités d'entropie discrètes usuelles vérifiées par les schémas d'ordre élevé ne sont pas pertinentes pour assurer le bon comportement dans le régime de convergence. On propose alors une extension des techniques de limitation {\it a posteriori} pour forcer la vérification des inégalités d'entropie discrètes requises. Dans la dernière partie, on s'intéresse à la construction de schémas well-balanced pour le modèle de Saint-Venant, le modèle de Ripa et les équations d'Euler avec gravité. On propose plusieurs stratégies permettant d'obtenir des schémas numériques capables de préserver tous les régimes stationnaires au repos. On développe également des extensions d'ordre élevé.

The Chinese language has become an increasingly important Asian language for American students and more and more of them have a desire to learn it. The problems and the difficulties that Chinese foreign language (CFL) learners have when they try to use their knowledge of new vocabulary in reading comprehension are apparent. Previous studies have described some aspects that may influence reading comprehension and have indicated that Chinese is a relatively difficult language for native speakers of American English, but there are few studies that have focused on improving CFL learners' Chinese reading comprehension. This study investigates the effect of pre-learning vocabulary and contextualized word learning strategies on Chinese reading comprehension. The purpose of this study is to examine whether pre-learning vocabulary and contextualized word learning positively affect CFL learners' reading comprehension. The results show that pre-learning vocabulary does not have a positive effect on Chinese reading comprehension and that although contextualized word learning positively affects CFL learners' reading comprehension the effect is not significant. This study also gives relative analysis.

Every year, more and more foreign students learn Chinese. This also includes many Greeks. At present, the books and teaching materials related to learning Chinese are usually in English or other languages, but there are not many in Greek. Research on Chinese language teaching so far has mainly focused on English-speaking students or students in Asia, and the purpose of this study is to examine the strategies used by Greek students in the early stages of their exposure to Chinese characters. The research aim is to study the strategies that Greek CFL beginner’s level students use to recognize and use the Chinese characters. According to current research, English-speaking students' strategies for learning the Chinese characters are to use frequently, copy, observe the stroke order and pay attention to the spelling and pronunciation of the Chinese characters; Korean and Japanese learners pay attention to the stroke positions of the Chinese characters, while Malaysian learners usually type the characters on a computer. Using the qualitative research method, ther esearcher conducted interviews with six Greek students, as such studies better describe participants' experiences and points of view. Analysis of the interview results showed that Greek students' strategies for learning Chinese characters include: connecting the Chinese characters with Greek morphemes, associating the Chinese characters with real-life images,using online dictionaries or apps to look up characters, memorizing Chinese characters, analyzing Chinese characters’ Components, using pinyin and reading the Chinese characters. / 每年都有越来越多的外国学生学习中文。它还包括许多希腊人。目前，与汉语学习有关的书籍和教材通常以英语或其他语言为主，希腊语并不多。迄今为止的汉语教学的研究主要集中在讲英语的学生或亚洲的学生，本研究的目的是检验希腊学生在开始接触汉字的早期阶段所使用的策略。研究问题是学习初级汉语的希腊学生使用什么策略来识别或使用汉字？根据目前的研究，英语为母语的学生学习汉字的策略是多用汉字、临摹汉字、观察汉字的笔顺、注意汉字的拼写和读音；韩语和日语的学习者注意汉字的笔画位置，而马来西亚的学习者通常在电脑上打字。作者使用定性研究方法，对六名希腊学生进行了访谈，因为此类研究能更好地描述了参与者的经历、意见和感受。访谈结果分析表明，希腊学生学习汉字的策略包括：将汉字的部件与希腊语素联系起来，将汉字与现实生活中的形象联系起来，用在线词典或应用程式中查字，记诵汉字，分析汉字的组成部分，使用拼音和朗读汉字。