Navigating the Digital World : Teaching Contemporary Chinese Culture in UK Universities via a Third Space with a Multimodal Approach

Guenier, Amily and Min, Ge (2022) Navigating the Digital World : Teaching Contemporary Chinese Culture in UK Universities via a Third Space with a Multimodal Approach. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, 12 (5): 41. pp. 1-12. ISSN 2155-7098

Text (Navigating the Digital World revised version 与闵戈 最终版)
Navigating_the_Digital_World_revised_version_.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (386kB)

Abstract

This study explores a multimodal approach to teaching contemporary Chinese culture to foster university students' intercultural awareness and intercultural communication competence via a third space. Two universities in the UK took part in the study where the course contents moved from static notions of culture-as-fact in terms of national traditions to digital presentation of and live discussion about contemporary China. The pedagogy includes discussing Chinese celebrities' digital videos and films on digital platforms, and students' digital presentations in multimodal modes. Findings from students' comments in the module evaluations, students' reflective essays, and lecturers' observations prove the viability of this approach, and the data analyzed via themes address the function of the third space, the application of multimodality, and approaches to intercultural awareness and intercultural communication competence. The paper suggests that multimodality can be an effective approach to advancing theory and practice in future contemporary culture teaching.