Learn to Talk, Talk to LearnConversational Chinese Online

Wuping Lu05/31/06

Target Audience

College students at Stanford University enrolled in a two-credit class to learn basic conversational Mandarin

Class twice a week, each 50 minutes, in winter quarter

Learners’ Characteristics Motivated – many are learning Chinese

as an elective fun course Busy – learners can’t fit more class time

in their intensive course schedules Diverse – they come from a variety of

backgrounds and majors Have prior knowledge – all have taken

at least the autumn quarter basic Chinese course or equivalent

Learning Problems at Stanford

Grammar rules and verb conjugations occupy most of class time (50 minute class)

Learning lacks context (real-life situations, for example, buying food at the market or asking someone for directions )

Lacks supportive learning resource outside classroom (e.g., native speakers to practice)

Therefore, at the end of the class, most of students are still not communicative competent

Design of Solution Try to address a local learning problem, but

scalable and generalizable to large similar population.

Focuses on basic conversational Chinese but can be modified for intermediate and advanced Chinese

Not intend to replace classroom rather complement classroom learning

Use how people learn in general and communicative language teaching/learning approach in particular to inform the design of the learning environment

Use Internet and Web 2.0 as platform

Communicative Language Teaching Makes use of communication to teach

languages. Emphasizes real-life situations and

communication in context (Galloway, 1993) CLT also stresses social and situational

contexts of communication. Multimedia is an ideal way to teach

language using CLT as the theory. It allows for realistic simulations of communicative situations.

How People Learn

Learner Centered Knowledge Centered Assessment Centered Community Centered

Online Learning Community/Tool

Students will access an innovative online resource center/community called CrossChina. CrossChina organizes Chinese language resources under one interface such as videos, glossaries, chat tools, games and reading.

Graph designed by Angel

Talk to Learn, Learn to TalkBilingual Wiki

Scenario – Having meals at restaurantLevel 1 Level 2 Level 3

Learning Objectives

Content

Learning Activities

Assessment

English Pinyin Chinese CharacterVideo/Audio

Cultural Related Issues

In USA In China

Grammar Summary

Audio Dictionary

Chatting RoomScenario

Chat with people who are reading this page

Technology should be simple

Technology is a tool to support learning. The students and teachers should not have to invest in learning new tools or IT support. It should incorporate every day tools available on the internet that student’s may already be using.

Anticipated Design Challenges How to provide rich simulated language

application context Native speakers are not necessarily good

language tutors. Therefore, one challenge is how to ensure the real learning can happen even if the native speakers are not pedagogically trained.

The time difference between China and USA, assuming most native speakers are from China.

How native speakers can benefit from the process too.