Facilitating students’ learning of lower-level language strategies of classical Chinese using a game-based flipped learning design

Abstract

Due to the significant linguistic differences between modern and classical Chinese, students encounter great difficulties at lexical and syntactic level when reading classical Chinese texts. This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of using a game-based flipped learning (FL) design to facilitate students’ learning of language strategies, specifically designed to address students’ lower-level reading difficulties of classical Chinese. A pretest-posttest treatment-control group quasi-experimental design was employed, involving a total of 243 students from two secondary schools in Hong Kong. Students from each school were assigned to the experimental group (EG) received flipped learning instruction and the control group (CG) received traditional teacher-centered instruction. Online teaching videos focusing on lower-level language strategies were used for EG students' pre-class preparation, game-based activities were used to facilitate their strategy application in class, and an online game platform was designed for post-class practice. Reading comprehension test, questionnaires, and interviews were used to assess the effectiveness of strategy learning on enhancing students’ classical Chinese reading comprehension and motivation, and gain insights into students' perceptions on the flipped learning approach. The results revealed that the EG outperformed the CG in all post-test measures after controlling for the pre-test scores. In the interviews, EG students reported that the learning of lower-level language strategies significantly improved their reading comprehension and motivation and showed positive perceptions of the game-based elements of flipped learning. While previous research on FL has largely focused on English as a second/foreign language, the successful experiences documented in this study extended the FL research to an unexplored language learning area and provided empirical support for utilizing FL and game-based learning as an effective alternative approach to improve students’ learning of classical Chinese.