A multimodal approach to teaching Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) in the digital world

This research investigates a cohort of bilingual Chinese teachers’ use of a multimodal approach in their Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teaching. The data include the participants’ CFL teaching practices and their reflections on multimodal teaching as recorded in their theses and a focus group discussion. The theoretical underpinning of this paper is based on Paivio’s dual coding theory (DCT) and Kress’s social-semiotic theory (SST). This research found that the teachers’ multimodal use in CFL teaching demonstrated their research-informed committed endeavour in designing content specific activities to achieve pedagogical purposes, utilizing some digital technologies as a resource. The uniqueness of the written form of the Chinese language availed these teachers the opportunity to engage the multiple modes and advance their own understanding of multimodality as a concept. This research also found the teachers’ meaning making through the multimodality did not always equate to that of their students’ due to their social and cultural differences.