Teaching development grants final and financial report: Developing a blended learning approach for teachers in early experience in Putonghua module using an OBL approach

The needs of qualified Putonghua kindergarten teachers are increasing in Hong Kong (Zhang & Zhang, 2006; Hu, 2009). However, few studies or projects have focused on preparing Putonghua teacher's education for preprimary institutions. The results of a pre-survey in a course of Early Experience in Putonghua indicates four main challenges that pre-service teachers have encountered: 1) a lack of confident in Putonghua speaking; 2) insufficient Putonghua teaching strategies; 3) a lack of appropriate Putonghua teaching and learning materials for young children (Hu, 2009; Hu, in press). In order to deal with the above challenges, this project specifically aims to design a blended learning approach to improve 1) pre-service teachers' self-learning in Putonghua classroom language; and 2) competence of teaching Putonghua in early childhood settings. Blended learning offers the effective integration of the face-to-face and Internet technology learning for engaging and meaningful experience (Garrison & Vaughan, 2007). It is expected that outcomes of this project will include a web platform, which will be integrated to facilitate pre-service teachers' Putonghua instructional design. Multiple web-based learning and teaching materials will also be designed and uploaded, and the materials include Putonghua self-learning classroom language materials, Putonghua songs, Putonghua electric stories, and animations. In addition, exemplars of Putonghua activities will be collected from local kindergartens. Pre-service teachers and in-service teachers will be invited to participate in the collaborative work of developing Putonghua teaching materials, which is hoped to better equip teachers with various instructional strategies when teaching Putonghua in the classroom context.