Online Interactive Language Exercises for Introductory Chinese

Grant:

Lecturers' Professional Development Fund (LPDF)

Academic Year:

2010 - 2011 (June 1, 2010 through May 31, 2011)

Funding Requested:

$1,800.00

Project Dates:

Mon, 01/10/2011 - Thu, 06/30/2011

Applicant(s):

jinyili

Overview of the Project:

I am seeking a grant to develop the Online Interactive language Exercises for Introductory Chinese, a program with the objective of providing students with listening and speaking exercise, in addition to their normal written assignments. I aim to enhance the first year Chinese students' ability to listen and comprehend and to enhance speaking accuracy without an instructor. The online interactive language exercises for introductory Chinese will be based on a series of Rich Internet Applications (free for educational uses) provided by the Center for language Education and Research at Michigan State University. I am requesting $1,800 to purchase the required multimedia material and to hire a student assistant.

Final Report Fields

Project Objectives:

To enhance thefirst-year Chinesestudents’ ability tolisten and comprehendand to enhancespeaking accuracywithout an instructor.

Project Achievements:

Key accomplishments :• I have completed the online exercise webpage for the 20 lessons in the textbookIntegrated Chinese Level 1.• Students in the Summer Language Institute have used The Online Interactive LanguageExercises for Introductory Chinese as part of their homework assignment in my class,which received very positive reviews and was highly recommended.• The proposal of this project was accepted by the American Council on the Teaching ofForeign Languages (ACTFL) Annual Convention and World Languages Expo in Denver,Colorado, where I will present this work to a wide variety of foreign language instructors inNovember.

Continuation:

Open Issues:• To develop additional exercises beyond the current True/False and Multiple Choiceresponses.• Copyright protection due to the publicly-available online resource.

Dissemination:

Students’ Comments:• “The online homework is very useful! The videos of the dialogues are useful, yetentertaining. I also think the conversations we have with you are fun. I like having theonline homework.”• “The online homework is very good practice. I like the fact that it gives us a chance topractice speaking and listening some more, and your questions reemphasize what welearned that day, which is always helpful. The videos are good to watch, because they letus see and hear what’s going on at the same time. I definitely think that you shouldcontinue to use the online questions from you. They make sure we listen, speak, read,and write for our homework. ”• “I think that the new practice tool is very helpful. It gives you the possibility to havesomething similar to a conversation with you teacher in Chinese and get graded. Also bydoing extra hearing and talking I think that my Chinese is getting a little better.”• “Overall I think that the online homework is a great learning tool. The only thing that Imight comment on is the recording portion of the homework. Desktops like the ones inthe fishbowl don't have the ability to record my responses, this of course would only be aproblem for students without access to a laptop or connectible webcam. Besides that Ithink that the online homework is great.”

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