High dropout rates in secondary Chinese courses: are characters to be blamed?

The purpose of this study was to explore the reasons for low retention rates among students in the Chinese classes in upper secondary education in the Czech Republic. The principal research question was whether Chinese characters were the main reason why many students decided to stop attending their Chinese classes. Semi-structured interviews with former and present secondary students of Chinese were employed in order to understand the students' attitudes and beliefs regarding learning Chinese characters and the Chinese language in general. It was found that the characters did not deter students from continuing the class, even though they were perceived as challenging and difficult. On the contrary, they were typically the students' favourite aspect of Chinese. A lack of personal motivation was identified as the main factor that differentiated the students who quit their Chinese course from their more successful counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]