Abstract
Teacher perspectives have been lacking in the mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) literature. To fill this gap, this study investigates how Chinese teachers implemented WeChat-supported language tasks and the challenges they encountered in the process. Based on technology-mediated task-based language teaching and authentic assessment frameworks, we designed tasks that aimed to achieve both pedagogical goals (focusing on linguistic forms and achieving authenticity) and technological goals. Teachers’ reflective journals revealed that implementing WeChat-supported tasks was a holistic and dynamic process, entailing four interrelated phases and requiring continuous management of unexpected events. This indicates that teachers should develop new skills and play complex, well-rounded roles to meet both the pedagogical and technological goals of technology-mediated tasks in MALL in the digital era.
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Data availability
The datasets used and analysed during this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
“Moments,” Pengyouquan in Chinese, literally means “friends’ circle” and is a function of WeChat that allows users to share pictures or videos with captions, links to articles in WeChat subscription channels and external websites. The WeChat friends of a user can “like” and comment on the posts in his or her Moments.
The features applicable to TSLT are included here; others that apply exclusively to the strong form of TBLT are excluded, such as the “technology [that] must become part of the full programmatic cycle that shapes a TBLT curriculum” mentioned by González-Lloret (2017).
Although another teaching staff member who was not part of this research also joined the WeChat groups and consented to writing reflective journals, her data were excluded in this paper because she was a non-researching teacher (i.e., not doing research in the field of language teaching). Teacher-researcher’s perspectives may be different from non-researching teachers since researchers may be more informed about the theoretical innovations in the field. Some studies pointed out that if a new pedagogy is compatible with teachers’ existing beliefs, they are more likely to accept and adopt it in classroom practice (Zhang and Luo 2018). Future research may compare the perspectives of teacher-researchers and non-researching teachers on MALL and technology-mediated TBLT.
The guidelines of each task were released a week prior to the due date so that the students could have enough time to plan for the task and perform it on their mobile devices.
One of our colleagues pointed out that the examples were better interpreted in terms of authenticity rather than creativity. We agree that these examples indeed exemplify different priorities for authentic language use and accuracy, but the context was that we discussed the possibility of creativity in this type of task. This discussion prompted us to reflect on it in the journal. Therefore, the term “creativity” was kept here to refer to learner-created questions and learning content which may give more room for creative language use (as opposed to the structures in the textbook).
TR3 capitalised this word in her reflective journal to emphasise that food was a topic beyond the required content of that lesson.
An end-of-semester survey showed that only 38.6% student participants had used WeChat before.
For example, some students may find difficulty in adding a member in the WeChat group as a friend, changing the alias or having group members’ names shown on the screen for more efficient group chatting.
Constrained by space, we could not give more examples of the use of emojis and stickers in this paper. For more information on the multimodal affordances of stickers for Chinese learners at the beginner level, see Jin (2018).
TR1′s self-introduction in Chinese in the screenshot showcased how to structure a more advanced sentence containing an attributive (“I am a Chinese teacher at the University of XX.”) based on more basic ones (“I am a teacher”; “I am a Chinese teacher”).
Although this study has argued that accuracy often gives way to meaningful communication in authentic language assessment, it should be acknowledged that accuracy is an important factor for effective communication and an instructional goal. The point is that we should not see accuracy as the only criterion while neglecting possible language varieties and creativity.
Abbreviations
- TAM:
-
Technology acceptance model
- PPP:
-
Presentation-practice-production
- FL:
-
Foreign language
- L2:
-
Second language
- NS:
-
Native speaker
- MALL:
-
Mobile-assisted language learning
- SA:
-
Study abroad
- TBLT:
-
Task-based language teaching
- TR:
-
Teacher-researcher
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Acknowledgements
We thank Associate Professor Linda Tsung, Ms. Jing Li and Ms. Xiaoliang Zhao for their advice on the data interpretations of this study. They helped us improve the quality and reliability of the results presented in this paper. Our sincere gratitude also goes to the three anonymous reviewers whose suggestions strengthened this paper.
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All authors jointly designed the research, analysed and interpreted the data. PT was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. YZ and SIA contributed substantially to the modified version. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: WeChat tasks in previous studies
Studies (in chronological order) | Types of WeChat tasks |
|---|---|
Wang et al. (2016) | Language exchange with NSs. One ice-breaker activity and five mega tasks. Each mega task has three suggested activities: recorded speech and feedback, conversation/writing task, and form-focused feedback |
Xu and Peng (2017) | Oral tasks. Students were given a topic to talk about via WeChat voice message function. Feedback were given by NSs via voice or text messages |
Sung and Poole (2017) | Tasks in a tandem program using specific functions in WeChat: texting tasks—reviewing vocabulary and structures; voice tasks—oral skills; camera tasks—new vocabulary |
Jiang and Li (2018) | Question and answer tasks in a language exchange like Wang et al. (2016) |
Appendix 2: WeChat tasks designed in this study
Language Task 1—Introducing a friend | Time | Week 4 |
Task description | Write a short introduction to a peer and post it in the class group chat on WeChat | |
Basic steps | Step 1 (in class): Work in pairs and introduce yourself to each other. Step 2 (in class): Take notes when your partner is introducing himself or herself. Step 3 (on WeChat): Based on the information provided by your partner, introduce them to the whole class on WeChat | |
WeChat functions | Group text messaging | |
Goals of the task | (1) Pedagogical goals: Simulating authentic communication: making a new friend; practising vocabulary and structures for introducing a person. (2) Technological goals: Familiarising with the texting and group messaging functions of WeChat | |
Language Task 2—Posting about daily activities | Time | Week 6 |
Task description | Post on WeChat Moments daily activities with photos and a short illustration | |
Basic steps | Step 1: Take snapshot of your activities in a day and select nine favourite photos. Step 2: Write a story about the day by describing the nine photos. Step 3: Post the photos and the story on WeChat Moments. Step 4: Comment on or ask question(s) about at least one other student’s story | |
WeChat functions | Posting and commenting on Moments | |
Goals of the task | (1) Pedagogical goals: Simulating authentic self-presentation on the social media using texts and photos; practising the positioning of time and place in a sentence. (2) Technological goals: Using Moments and understanding its role in Chinese people’s lives | |
The Hotpot Vlog task | Time | Week 7 |
Task description | Read the tutor’s Moments post about a Hotpot Vlog and leave a comment | |
Basic steps | Step 1 (in class): Watch the Hotpot Vlog and complete the relevant listening exercises; Step 2 (on WeChat): Read the story related to the Vlog posted by the tutor on Moments; Step 3 (on WeChat): Leave a comment on the tutor’s Moments post | |
WeChat functions | Commenting on Moments | |
Goals of the task | (1) Pedagogical goals: Simulating authentic social media communication with NSs; practising vocabulary and structures related to Chinese cuisine and making comments. 2) Technological goals: reinforcing the skills of using WeChat Moments and enhancing technological competence | |
Language Task 3—Designing a dream Shop | Time | Week 11 |
Task description | Design a dream shop and advertise it in the group chat | |
Basic steps | Step 1: Design a dream shop by drawing on a worksheet or designing on the computer, including a picture of the store, store name, menu and prices. Step 2: Take a photo of the worksheet, post it on Moments and advertise it with a few sentences. Try to make it attractive to your “customers”! Step 3: Advertise the shop by making a 1-min video and post in the group chat | |
WeChat functions | Posting and commenting on Moments; sharing short video clips; sharing videos | |
Goals of the task | (1) Pedagogical goals: Simulating self-representation on social media (individualised use of multimodal tools to attract attention); practising vocabulary and structures related to shopping, etc. (2) Technological goals: Familiarising with sharing videos on WeChat and enhancing multimodal media literacies |
Appendix 3: Teacher reflective journal guidelines
Journal X: WeChat task X
Date: XX/XX/XX
Part 1 Preparing for the task
(1) What preparation work did you do for the task?
(2) What difficulties did you anticipate?
Part 2 Instructions on the task
(1) What instructions did you prepare to introduce the task to students?
(2) How did you promote the students to participate in the task?
Part 3 Monitoring the task
(1) How did you remind students of the task and monitor the whole process?
(2) Did you make any adjustments to the task?
(3) How did you give feedback to the students for this task?
Part 4 Your reflections on the task
(1) Does the task meet the original goals?
(2) What are the successes and the challenges of the task?
(3) Please add anything significant to you that emerged in your experience.
Appendix 4: Examples of coding categories for thematic analysis on what the teachers did and experienced during the process of operating WeChat tasks
Example statements from the reflective journals | Level 1 coding | Level 2 coding | Overarching themes |
|---|---|---|---|
In general, I thought this task primarily aimed to encourage students’ creativity and enthusiasm in using the language | Understanding the task | Pre-task preparations before the class | The holistic process of operating WeChat tasks (teachers’ practices that ensured the achievement of the prescribed steps and goals) |
Since it was the first activity on WeChat, most students were not familiar with the interface and functions of WeChat. If insufficient time was spent on familiarising students with the app, the guidelines of this activity might seem too complicated | Anticipating challenges | ||
I prepared a ppt in class explaining the two parallel activities starting from week 4 (the language activity and the cultural activity). In the ppt, the first section named ‘get ready’ was to familiarise students with typing characters on WeChat and useful WeChat functions | Preparing materials | ||
Because it was the first task through WeChat, reminder is important so that students could get used to the new learning mode | Understanding the priorities of a technology-mediated task | ||
Verbal instruction in class. Ask if everyone has recording apps Because it is the first task through WeChat, reminder is important | Explaining the instructions | Pre-task preparations during the class | |
a. I informed students about the importance of WeChat to Chinese people’s daily life. b. I made it clear that the aim of the task was to facilitate interaction among students and after-class practice of the language | Promoting and encouraging in class | ||
Practice in pairs in class, asking and telling the above three topics. This speaking practice is closely related to our Activity 1 | Preparing and scaffolding | ||
The use of WeChat might be a bit challenging for the students as some of them had not used it before. In response to this potential difficulty, I played a video explaining step-by-step how to type characters and tones and how to use some of the functions of WeChat. This turned out to be very useful | Lowering students’ resistance to the technological aspect of the task | ||
After the class in week 4, the ppt file was immediately uploaded on Canvas and sent through via WeChat class group. I checked WeChat messages daily to make sure that students who had made contributions could get instant feedback and other students could be reminded of the task. I sent reminders in the group chat when the due date was approaching | Reminding and monitoring | Task performance on the mobile devices | |
In order to motivate them and encourage them to practice Chinese after class via WeChat, I initiated conversations in the Class Group, and sometimes @ some student(s) to reply | Promoting and encouraging after class during the task-performance process | ||
I gave immediate response to each student’s post whenever they posted it on WeChat | Giving instant feedback in online interactions | ||
(I made) informal comments on the content generated by a student immediately after the student posted in the Study Group. For example, 你的朋友很可爱 (your friend is cute); 很高兴认识你的新同学 (nice to see your new classmate); 谢谢 你的介绍 (thanks for your introduction), etc. | Engaging in the task as a participant | ||
I printed out each student’s interview report on a piece of paper and corrected mistakes with a red pen, which was handed out in class. I spent about 10–15 min to let students re-post their interview report based on my corrections and comments. The edited reports were posted on Moment so that the students could ‘publish’ a revised version of their work with more confidence | Providing corrective and evaluative feedback | Post-task activities | |
One follow-up activity was added. After posting their introduction on Moments, I collected all postings, selected some important or/and useful words/expressions from each student and made some decorations for each piece of their work. In class, I showed them the edited Postings in PDF, and let them get to know more about each other and ask questions based on the introduction | Follow-up activities | ||
I commented that they all did very well in typing Chinese characters, which will be very useful for them for online communication | Reflecting on technological goals | ||
Guidelines has been adapted in terms of the duration of activities (to be posted in on WeChat) chosen. Students are given a flexible time duration for choosing—one week (rather than 1 day) | Adjusting the guidelines | Making adjustments | The dynamic process of operating WeChat tasks (teachers’ practices to manage unexpected events) |
The deadline of the videos was more flexible considering potential technical and linguistic difficulties | Adjusting the due dates | ||
I should have spent more time in class in week 4 to complete Step 1 so that students would not have to do too much work after class | Time control challenges | Handling unforeseen challenges | |
My multiple attempts for them to make voice post have failed to receive any response. Even when the requests had addressed to specific students | Unexpected low participation | ||
‘Family’ is a very elastic topic for all levels. Students are very curious about my daughter after I shared with them some stories of my daughter’s life and words and expressions of Chinese she used in daily life, which generated many unexpected interesting conversations | Creating incidental learning opportunities | Seizing serendipitous opportunities | |
Unexpectedly, I went dinner with a friend a few days before the deadline of the activity and found the menu of that restaurant very creative, so I took a picture and sent it in the WeChat groups right away to encourage the creativity of students | Enriching task materials |
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Tong, P., An, I.S. & Zhou, Y. Holistic and dynamic: teacher-researcher reflections on operating mobile-assisted learning tasks supported by WeChat for Chinese as a foreign language. Instr Sci 48, 729–763 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-020-09524-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-020-09524-3