Web Assisted Chinese Learning

1
Web Assisted Chinese Learning

• -- Whats the difference?
• By
• Dr. Zhang Ping
• March 2003
• Tel Aviv University

2
Contents

• A brief history of WACL.
• Three types of WACL site.
• Four key components of WACL contents.
• Three problems with WACL.
• Conclusions.

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A brief history of WACL

• First Period 1995 - 1999
• Second Period 2000 -
• Watershed The 2nd International Conference on
  New Technologies in Teaching and Learning
  Chinese, 2000, Guilin, China

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First Period 1995 - 1999

• Made in America.
• Made by Chinese teachers.
• Used inside university.
• Simple components from technological point of
  view.

5
First Period 1995 - 1999

• Harvard University
• Go to its courses, find out a grammar note and
  tell me what you learned.
• When was this site built? When it was updated
  last time?
• Go to one of its teaching materials archive, and
  try to learn something.

6
Second Period 2000 -

• Made in China, Taiwan and other countries.
• Made by joint force of Chinese teachers and
  computer engineers.
• Used all over the world.
• Advanced and professional components from
  technological point of view.

7
Second Period 2000 -

• On Line College of Chinese Language
• Go to register as a student.
• Who is the online teacher now?
• Go to classroom and learn something, tell
  everyone.

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Three types of WACL site

• Web site as a school.
• Web site as a textbook.
• Web site as course assistance.

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Web site as a school

• Students registration.
• Degree awarding. (some)
• Multi courses.
• On line teachers. (some)
• Advanced and professional technological
  components.

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Web site as a school

• http//www.eblcu.net/newchinese/nother/yanshi.html
  
• Choose a course, try to learn something and
  describe the way of learning.

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Web site as a textbook

• All the necessary components required by a
  traditional textbook, texts, vocabulary, grammar
  notes, exercises, answers, etc.
• A clear subject of the site, supported by all the
  materials in the site.
• Independence of the site and students activity.

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Web site as a textbook

• http//www2.kenyon.edu/people/bai/vcsc.htm
• Go to one lesson and describe the system of
  learning in this web site.

13
Web site as course assistance

• Made by teachers.
• Materials that seem necessary to the teachers.
• Experiments of new ways of teaching.
• Simple and advanced technological components.

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Web site as course assistance

• http//www.tau.ac.il/pzhang/

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Four key components of WACL contents

• Teachers lectures.
• http//www.tau.ac.il/pzhang/grammar/complement/co
  mple2.htm
• http//www.eblcu.net/lesson/demo/zonghehanyu/Norm_
  015yufa.html
• http//www.tau.ac.il/pzhang/characters/character1
  .htm
• http//www.eblcu.net/lesson/demo/zonghehanyu/Norm_
  015shengci.html
• Learning materials.
• http//www.tau.ac.il/pzhang/sing/wangwei04.html
• http//www.chineseon.net/demo/course/bzzw-2-5_demo
  .htm
• Exercises.
• Listening comprehension, reading comprehension,
  pronunciation.
• Other materials (introductions, links, etc.)

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Three problems with WACL

• Web vs traditional media
• http//www.tau.ac.il/pzhang/tools/readtoolframese
  t.htm
• http//www.cmilitary.com/articleReader.php?idx416
  46
• Teachers vs engineers
• Dreams vs reality.

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Conclusions

• The development of WACL has been remarkable.
• WACL is still in its early stage.
• The main problem with WACL is its identification.
• In the foreseeable future, most developments on
  WACL will be from China and Taiwan.