A study on teaching Chinese vocabulary using a multimodal approach at a Western Sydney primary school

Abstract

This study explores multimodal pedagogy in teaching Chinese vocabulary at a Western Sydney primary school. It is designed as two cycled teacher's action research. Data were collected from documents, observation, reflection journals and students' focus groups. Through the teacher's application of a series of designed multimodal activities in students' vocabulary learning, this research found that multimodal pedagogy helped students' comprehension and memorisation; improved their pronunciation accuracy and lowered anxiety over pronouncing vocabulary; and increased students' willingness to write Chinese characters. The research findings suggest that multimodal teaching is effective in teaching Chinese as a foreign language class. However, some key factors need to be considered with the application. Firstly of all, the teacher should consider time management for multimodal activities, preparation of technical equipment and effective instruction on the rules of the multimodal activities at the beginning of a lesson. During the lesson, the teacher should consider appropriate scaffolding, competition element to be built in the activities and carefully monitoring student's understanding. In addition, when assessing students' learning, the teacher should consider proper feedback on students' performance.

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English