Students’ Attitudes and Perceptions of Learning Mandarin Chinese via Animated Video

Suo Yan Ju,Suo Yan Mei

doi:10.6007/ijarbss/v10-i10/7782

Abstract

The health crisis of COVID-19 has forced many countries around the world to close schools, colleges, and universities. Malaysia's high education administration announced that teaching and learning would be fully online for universities starting from the 1st of June till the end of 2020. This short and long-term disruption shocked by many students and lecturers in the tertiary education sector in Malaysia. Teaching and learning and even assessments have moved fully online, resulting in lot of trials and errors and uncertainty for everyone. Covid-19 has posed significant challenges not only for lecturers, but students as well. There are a plethora of challenges such as technical difficulties, coverage, and speed of the Internet, the quality of teaching, and interactions for students who are not familiar and used to online learning. It is extremely important to attract learners and motivate them in an online learning environment in order to help learners overcome challenges and difficulties in learning. The present study explored the students’ attitudes and perceptions of learning Mandarin via animated videos at a beginner level. Animated video is used to create content covered in online lessons and integrates basic Mandarin vocabulary, sentence structures and enhances learning. Several surveys and semi-structured interviews were used to assess students’ attitudes and perceptions towards this method of instruction in online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of the study demonstrated that students kept a positive attitude towards learning Mandarin via animated video. Students expressed that animated video not only enhanced their listening and speaking skills, it also helped them learn Mandarin vocabulary and sentence structures. The findings of this study also suggested that animated video provides Mandarin language teachers with extensive Mandarin vocabulary and sentence structures and enhances learning through fun activities in online teaching.

Highlights

Online teaching and learning are not new to the education sector, many schools and universities have developed their own online teaching and learning methods
The findings of this study suggested that animated video provides Mandarin language teachers with extensive Mandarin vocabulary and sentence structures and enhances learning through fun activities in online teaching
Findings and Discussions The data was collected from different instruments including a structured five point-Likert- type perception and attitude questionnaire, an open-end attitude questionnaire and a semi-structured interview to obtain the findings of students’ attitudes and perceptions toward learning Mandarin Chinese via animated video

Summary

Introduction

Online teaching and learning are not new to the education sector, many schools and universities have developed their own online teaching and learning methods. Most of the education sector is still relies heavily on traditional face-to-face interactions in the classroom. Compared to face-to-face classroom teaching, there are many advantages of online teaching and learning. Switching from a traditional classroom and face-to-face teaching and learning to computer-based learning in a virtual classroom makes the learning experience entirely different for students. The changes take time for students to adapt and become accustomed to a computer-based education. Students encountered many problems such as technical issues, a lack of computer literacy, adaptability, and time-management. There was a lack of motivation, which is an essential requirement in online teaching and learning. Being able to understand and enhance students’ motivation of online learning has a significant impact on how educators help the students improve their general performance

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Conclusion