Designing teaching based on learners' ways of seeing the object of learning

In this article, we put forward an approach to investigating learners’ ways of seeing the objects of learning (i.e. what they have to learn). This approach was inspired by Marton’s (1981, 1986, 1988, 2015) theory of phenomenography, which in essence aims at putting aside our own presuppositions so as to reveal the original nature of the different ways the objects of learning are seen by learners. The results of such investigation are then taken into consideration in designing activities for teaching the objects of learning. We will illustrate this approach with several examples of our projects in teaching Chinese characters to local children in kindergartens and junior primary schools in Hong Kong. As this approach is generic, it may also have practical implications to language teaching in general. Copyright © 2015 Centre for Language Studies.