Students' meaning making in a mobile assisted Chinese idiom learning environment

TL;DRAbstract

In recent years, we witness the rise of communicative and contextualized language approaches that is concomitant with developments of Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL). In this paper, we present a pilot study in MALL that emphasizes creative learner outputs and contextualized meaning making. In Chinese idioms, students used smartphones on a one-device-per-person basis to capture photos of the real-life contexts pertaining to the idioms, and to construct sentences with them. Subsequently, in-class or online discussions took place, which would enhance the students' understanding in the proper usage of the idioms. The design is grounded in the model that encompass in-class formal and out-of-class informal setting, and personal and social spaces. The students' ongoing, open-ended, personal-to-social meaning making process and artifacts have indeed shown some indicators of seamless language learning that has the potential of transforming language into an authentic experience.

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