Case study 4: Active learning approach within a Chinese language course
This project aimed to motivate and enhance students’ writing skills by involving native speakers’ timely interactive feedback to motivate and enhance students within a Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) course.
- Course: CHIN3001 Written Chinese IIA. 2nd year Chinese language course (approx. 50 students)
- School/Faculty: School of Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
- Delivery: a weekly 2hr face-to-face lecture session and 2hr face-to-face tutorial session
- Active learning approach: online Zoom meeting, interactions with native speakers of Chinese
- Assessment tasks: (1) students draft a composition; (2) a native speaker tutor goes through the draft via Zoom meeting; (3) students produce an improved version.
Key issues and anticipated outcomes
This project aimed to address the following challenges:
- Foreign language writing skills are difficult to develop
- Individualised feedback is rarely possible
- Interactive feedback with target cultural input is essential but difficult to obtain with normal face-to-face lecture or tutorial sessions
- Being involved in students’ collaborative writing (CW) process is an ideal approach to help enhance their writing skills, but resources are limited to allow that in usual teaching practices.
Project innovation team
- Dr Wendy Jiang, Course Coordinator and Project Lead
- Dr Yen-Ying Lai, Innovations Manager