title
Soldiers at Tiananmen SquareSmoggy sunset at Wangfujing shopping districtShrine to Mao at a hair salonAdvertisements on the Beijing Subway


Pedagogical Rationale and Goals

  • To increase students' aural comprehension by providing them with materials that include a variety of native speakers of Mandarin Chinese in addition to their own language teacher(s)
  • To provide students with immediate feedback
  • To develop collaborative learning among students
  • To allow students more interaction with the instructional material at their own pace and their own time
  • To save time on task for both teaching and learning by making available video clips and links to sites with relevant information

Production Process

The production process of the project includes three phrases:

(1) Pre-production/ preparation:
Prior to filming, I did research on each topic of the supplementary instructional material to help myself prepare the outline and the content of each topic. In the meantime, I wrote a script which included interview questions, scenes, production plan, etc.

(2) Production:

I shot video footage in Beijing for "Dating on Line", "Floating Population -- the migration of Chinese minorities in Beijing", and "Name Brand Fever" in the summer 2000 and for "Marriage Outlook in China" in summer 2001. All of the videos consist of interviews with native speakers from Beijing at the relevant sites on the chosen topics. The intent and purposes of filming were explained to the interviewees before filming to the extent possible. The online video clips on the website have interviewees who agreed to the filming and use of these interviews.

(3) Post-production:

After I came back to the U.S in fall 2000, I transferred and edited the video footage to the computer via web-site software Adobe Premiere 5.1. The template of the project was established after the first lesson "Floating Population" was made. Once the training sessions ended, I started the post-production process, which included selecting, transferring, editing, and transcribing the video footage, with help from a student project assistant. The project assistants with whom I have worked usually have had good computer and Chinese language skills. In the meantime, I have been developing the packet of interactive aural and oral exercises for each video clip.

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