Mandarin Communication Learning app: A proof-of-concept prototype of contextual learning

Abstract

This paper is an instance of howa Chinese language teacher trainer cooperated with a game-based learning (GBL) researcher to design and develop a mobile applicationfor learning daily communication in Mandarin. The teacher trainer intendsto assist beginning learners, specifically those who speak Malay as their first language, to establish confidence in speaking Mandarin in Malaysian‘sdaily living contexts; while the researcher has set out to testthe ecologicalvalidity of a GBL cooperation model. The interdisciplinary cooperation between theseindividuals has given rise tothe production ofaMandarin communication learning application. The key challenge encountered in the development has been to determinethechoice of contents and communication contexts for beginning learners. This paper illustrates how the challenges have been resolvedand discusses lessons learnt from the cooperation. The outcomes of the study would benefit academics, GBL researchersor developers who plan to initiate cross-disciplinary cooperation towards developinglanguage learning applications.