Shenglan Zhang publishes book chapter on “Technology-Assisted Chinese Character Teaching”

Shenglan Zhang, associate professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures, recently published a book chapter on “Technology-Assisted Chinese Character Teaching” in Chinese Language Education and Second Language Chinese Acquisition: An Interface with Chinese Linguistics. This study examines how technology has been used to assist Chinese character learning and teaching and gives suggestions on its future direction. In order to give a comprehensive view of technology-assisted character learning and teaching, an exhaustive search was done using four databases including Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA), ERIC, PsycInfo, and Education Index Retrospective which complement each other. Manual searches were also done to screen the titles and gather the relevant articles in essential journals and through references found in individual articles. A set of 24 articles are identified and are being cross-analyzed with a focus on what aspects of character learning and teaching were intended to improve with the application of what types of technology. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of the technology-assisted approaches was also examined. The result of the study will contribute to a better understanding of how to integrate technology to make teaching and learning Chinese characters more effective and what research still needs to be done in this area.