Distance Education

    Performance-based Multimedia Materials for Mandarin Chinese and Korean via an Integrated CD-ROM and World-Wide-Web Delivery Format

    A new component of the interrelated series of NFLRC distance education projects focusing on languages of Asia and the Pacific is a two-year project in Mandarin Chinese and Korean to produce user-friendly, performance-based instructional materials which integrate sound pedagogy and the latest multimedia technology. This project, funded in part by a grant from the Title VI International Research and Studies Program, builds on a series of interrelated previous initiatives and enables the upgrading of a rich variety of innovative, tested Chinese and Korean video and reading materials to an integrated CD-ROM and World-Wide-Web delivery format. The materials created at the University of Hawaiʻi over a number of years via a number of projects all emphasize a performance-based focus and the use of authentic or simulated materials.

    From 1993 to the present a number of interrelated efforts have enabled the University of Hawaiʻi to develop an impressive bank of instructional materials in Chinese and Korean. In 1993 and 1994 the UH National Foreign Language Resource Center conducted Summer Institutes on Materials Development for the Foreign Language Classroom, particularly the Asian language classroom. In 1995 and 1996 the UH NFLRC conducted Summer Institutes on technology and foreign language education, particularly as related to the less commonly taught languages of Asia. Performance-based lesson prototypes developed during these Summer Institutes and refined, field tested, and expanded upon during subsequent academic years will now be produced for dissemination to the profession in an integrated CD-ROM and World-Wide-Web delivery format.

    After field testing and refinement of the integrated CD and Web prototypes in the public electronic environment at the University of Hawaiʻi and nationwide, the materials will be publicized and disseminated via the World Wide Web and the UH NFLRC Publications Division. UH NFLRC Publications will maintain the Web site and manage the distribution of the companion CD-ROM to the profession.