News

2011.0315

The NTNU Cool Chinese Research Team Serves Chinese Learners Worldwide

<div> <p>With the Chinese fever sweeping across the world, the number of Chinese learners is going up. As information technology improves, a latest trend has emerged, which is to teach through digital media. The COOL Chinese research team of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) has adopted software like JoinNet, Second Life, Wiki Chinese and CHEERS to conduct multimedia Chinese teaching, serving those learners who cannot come to Chinese-speaking countries. If the teaching model is proved feasible, there will be an enormous market to be tap into.</p> </div> <div> <p><strong>Service-learning courses enable students to experience online Chinese teaching</strong></p> </div> <div> <p>JoinNet is a free platform established by the Ministry of Education. Students can gain access to its courses through a headset and a webcam. JoinNet is free and easy to operate for foreign students who want to learn Chinese. With JoinNet, students can learn Chinese at home, saving the expenses of traveling to Chinese-speaking countries.</p> </div> <div>In an effort to develop students' professionalism as Chinese teachers, Professor Yu-ju Lan of the Department of Applied Chinese Languages and Literatures of NTNU teaches students how to conduct distance Chinese teaching through service learning courses. Students can see for themselves how online Chinese teaching is done by using the JoinNet software. In so doing, students can not only make use of their professionalism but can also understand what it means to learn from giving service.</div> <div> <p>The major purpose of the course is to train students' online teaching capability. Students need to take training courses and familiarize themselves with Model platform and JoinNet software before they begin to teach. Students form groups and have discussions with professors on teaching materials and content, and they also have to do teaching demonstrations before they become teachers. With all these requirements, the service-learning course is proved just as rigorous as any other courses. </p> </div> <div> <p>Last semester NTNU cooperated with National Sun Yat-Sen University and came up with courses that feature daily Chinese conversations. The teaching themes center on realistic scenarios that foreign students in Taiwan may encounter, such as going shopping, ordering at restaurants, making hotel room reservations and checking out at stores. Teaching is done using digital materials containing self-made photos or videos, and foreign students reacted well to this kind of teaching.</p> </div> <div> <p>The service-learning course has been conducted for one semester. Recruiting for the course of the second semester is already underway. Even though the courses are strict, many students of the Department of Applied Chinese Languages and Literatures still sign up for the second-semester course, which is Seed Chinese Teacher Training. Some students are so inspired by the courses that they have set themselves the goal to become online Chinese teachers.</p> </div> <div> <p>Professor Lan indicated that this semester the COOL Chinese team is cooperating with Office of International Affairs of NTNU to serve foreign students studying at NTNU. Aside from the existing "Daily Chinese" course, the courses will be added with "Campus Chinese" and "Popular Chinese" in an attempt to help foreign students further integrate with the Taiwan society. Every week each course will have 4 time slots for students to choose.</p> </div> <div> <p><strong>Wiki Chinese acts as a transnational and cross-cultural platform for learning</strong></p> </div> <div> <p><span>    The Department of Applied Chinese Languages and Literatures has also developed Wiki Chinese system </span>（http://wikichinese.ice.ntnu.edu.tw）as a transnational and cross-cultural learning platform （Cross Culture Awareness Platform for Chinese Learning）. The platform adopted the concept of Web 2.0, which means that users can contribute contents to the platform, helping learners worldwide understand Chinese culture and enabling learners to share their thoughts. In such processes, cross-cultural exchanges are also facilitated.</p> </div> <div> <p>The system was launched in June 20, 2010. In just half a year, it had attracted users from more than 26 countries, including Vietnam, Singapore, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Sweden, Finland and so forth. Over 1,500 visits have been recorded. A collaboration project is currently being negotiated with foreign universities.</p> </div> <div> <p>Professor Lan reckoned that learning a language is also learning a culture. If you are not familiar with the culture of the language that you are studying, social gaffes are likely to occur. It should also be noted that proper social skills cannot be acquired only by studying textbooks. Cultural differences do exist, and each country has its customs and vernaculars that you may not find on textbooks.</p> </div> <div> <p>Wiki Chinese contains 4 sections, namely, Social Customs, Cultural SOS, Cultural Taboos and Chat Room. After signing up, users can participate in building of the Chinese teaching web pages. Users are also allowed to contribute to the web site by enhancing its contents or raise questions about Chinese learning. Questions about culture are also welcomed. </p> </div> <div> <p>The “Social Customs” section is divided into sub items based on the most commonly encountered interaction scenarios. The sub items include personal introductions, greetings, personal titles, invitations, questions, banqueting, congratulatory messages, rejections, criticism, condolence, phone conversation, party conversation, visits, reception, sending and receiving gifts, seeing off and welcoming people, making compliments and receiving compliments. Each item contains several dialogue scripts. The dialogues, which incorporate foreigners’ life experiences in Taiwan and their doubts and questions about Chinese culture, are written by instructors of NTNU Mandarin Center based on their teaching experiences.</p> </div> <div> <p>Cultural SOS offers a platform for cultural learners to post questions and exchange ideas. Students can raise questions about cultural aspects and the things they come across in daily life, such as weddings, funerals, festivals and word phrases. The question raiser’s nationality will be displayed on web page, making it more convenient for users to answer questions and have cultural exchanges.</p> </div> <div> <p>Every culture, more or less, has some taboos that foreigners may not know or understand. The Cultural Taboos section is a platform for users to discuss cultural prohibitions. For example, some questions have been raised about wedding congratulations messages. In Taiwan one common wedding congratulations phrases is “Be together forever and have a lovely baby soon”. However, Germans and Americans would probably not consider such congratulations appropriate because they think making such remarks is interfering with others’ privacy. Yet another case in point is that some Taiwanese people ask others about their salaries, which is also deemed impolite and an intrusion to privacy.</p> </div> <div> <p><strong>CHEERS software: an effective tool for self-studying Chinese</strong></p> </div> <div> <p>For foreigners who cannot come to Chinese-speaking countries to study Chinese characters, the CHEERS software (http://wikichinese.ice.ntnu.edu.tw）developed by the Department of Applied Chinese Languages and Literatures is an excellent tool for self-study as it combines computer digital technology with Chinese learning, allowing users to download learning content anytime, anywhere.</p> </div> <div> <p>The Chinese language does not have symbol-sound correspondences and its characters do not necessarily correspond to meanings, either. Western learners' experiences of acquiring their native spelling-sound languages would not be conducive to their learning of Chinese characters. Still, building a correct understanding of Chinese characters is vital to acquisitions of Chinese reading and speaking abilities.</p> </div> <div> <p>In an attempt to help learners formulate an accurate understanding of Chinese characters and changes of Chinese character forms, the system selected the most basic 150 Chinese characters based on a plethora of references. In addition, 50 most commonly seen radicals (Bushou) were selected using modern digital technology, and another 100 frequently used characters were sorted out based on the 50 radicals. It is hoped that with these characters, learners can get to know the evolution of Chinese character forms and be familiarized with structures and meanings of Chinese characters.</p> </div> <div> <p>The system word base is planned to be expanded to 800 basic Chinese characters. Based on the characters, teaching items including radicals, characters, phrases, sentences and dialogues have been developed and combined with multimedia elements like images, animation and audio so as to raise learners' interest. The learning system helps open the doors for students to the world of Chinese characters and culture, both with thousands years of history. The acquired knowledge can also be useful in daily life.<span>    </span></p> </div> <div> <p><span>      Furthermore, the self-study software enables students to make learning timetables, reminding themselves when certain learning tasks should be completed, thereby solving the problem of lack of perseverance that often occurs to learners who self-study languages. </span></p> </div> <div> <p><strong>Second Life Chinese courses allow learners to learn Chinese in 3D scenarios</strong></p> </div> <div> <p>According to social constructionism theory, languages are acquired through interactions. Learning effect can be enhanced through real life interactions. Communication-based teaching needs to be backed up with language contexts. Nevertheless, it is difficult for learners to have the level of language exposure needed if they do not come to Chinese-speaking countries. Through cooperation with the Second Life research team of National Central University, Professor Lan integrated cooperative learning activities of social interactions with 3D scenarios of Second Life, providing foreign students with learning activities that are close to language interactions in Chinese-speaking countries.</p> </div> <div> <p>The primary target learners of Second Life Chinese courses are foreign students, and the major purpose of the Chinese courses is to put theories into practice. According to theories, meaningful communications and social interactions between peers can help foreign learners pick up the Chinese language. Second Life Chinese course just bears witness to the theory.</p> </div> <p><span>     Take the lessons on “directions” as an example, in the first lesson students are taught the basic phrases such as “up”, “down”, ”left”, “right” and how to express what directions they are heading towards. In the second lesson, students are asked to carry out certain tasks by using what they have learned in the first lesson. Students may have to comprehend or give instructions like “turn left”, “head straight”, and “turn right” and thereby locating things in a virtual environment. The last lesson is “cooperative learning”, in which students have to integrate all they have learned to accomplish certain tasks (e.g. completing a treasure hunt) given by teachers. For instance, in a treasure hunt game, each student need to accomplish their missions to gather clues and then find out locations of gifts by figuring out what the clues mean. It is only by completely understanding course content can students get the tasks done. Foreign students who have participated all reckon the course to be excellent and look forward to new courses.</span></p>