This proposal to the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education directly addresses this year's published funding priorities, specifically, projects introducing Curricular and Pedagogical Reform in Second Language Acquisition as well as Technology and the Curriculum. The Chinese Language Programs at Baruch College and Bryn Mawr College jointly propose a project for a two-year period that seeks to help all students of Chinese language bypass the tremendous difficulties in learning to write Chinese characters by using computers and specially designed Chinese word-processing software from the beginning of their language learning process, thereby dramatically improving and accelerating their acquisition of all Chinese language skills. This project addresses one of the most pressing issues in today's Chinese language teaching and calls for fundamental and comprehensive innovation in Chinese language instruction. The proposed model can be easily and cost-effectively adapted in Chinese language classes across the country and ultimately will provide a blueprint for similar improvements in the instruction of related languages such as Japanese and Korean. The success of the project will be assessed largely through extensive and objective Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPI) conducted by outside certified testers that evaluate the progress of the students in experiment groups in comparison to those in control groups taught in traditional mode without the use of computers. As a part of our dissemination plan for the project, a package that includes specially designed Chinese word-processing software and a manual detailing the technical and pedagogical aspects of the "pen-less" approach will be distributed to the participants of a national dissemination workshop and other parties. The software and the manual will also be available free of charge from a publicized permanent website devoted to the new teaching approach, which will be properly maintained and updated during and after the funded period.