Chinese characters have been an obstacle preventing the
development of Chinese proficiency for learners of Chinese
whose native language does not have characters. A substantial
literature review identified linguistic, pedagogical, and political
factors as causes of those difficulties. Tone changes represent
different meanings of a word. Compound characters include the
phonetic component radicals that do not always sound the same as
the phonetic radicals. These unique linguistic features of the
Chinese language add even more challenges for learning of
Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). Technology integration has
been found to facilitate the teaching and learning foreign
languages in many efficient and effective ways. To overcome the
difficulties of learning CFL, the authors of this paper present a
technology enhanced character teaching model consisting of four
stages—radical awareness, enforcement of sound-meaning
connections of characters, enforcement of sound-meaning-form
connections of characters, and evaluation (REEE). This model
was found to be effective in saving class time for interaction and
in engaging students in the learning process. The authors suggest
future studies are needed to further investigate the effectiveness
of the REEE model of teaching and learning Chinese characters.