Using video dubbing activities in primary Chinese classroom for creative writing: A case study of students with multilingual background

Abstract

The multimodal approach of teaching and learning Chinese language is a new area to explore. Student do not only learn from reading, reproducing written Chinese words and listening to teachers' explana-tions of the words, other modes of input and output also help students learn Chinese. In this case study, video dubbing activities are introduced in a primary 2 Chinese classroom with 19 children who have arrived to Hong Kong less than 6 months earlier. They speak different Chinese dialects and know very little traditional written Chinese. They have to immerse into Hong Kong society where Chinese language is composed of spoken Cantonese and written Modern Chinese; which is also within the mainstream curriculum of most local schools. The newly arrived children in the school would have school-based learning materials and lesson designs catering for their special needs. In this case study, promising learn-ing behaviors were observed during the trial lessons and desirable learning outputs were noted in their worksheets of creative writing. Students were highly motivated and showed a high level of engagement in the learning process. The narrative writing showed their good effort in learning how to write in tradi-tional Chinese. In spite of their new arrival to Hong Kong, it showed how the students improved in learn-ing Chinese under a new school context.