Abstract:
After several decades of development, Chinese Language Teaching in Sri Lanka has reached relative levels of advancement with a significantly diversified selection of teaching materials. However, amongst the teaching of the four basic Chinese language skills, the oral skills of beginner Chinese learners in Sri Lanka have been found to be weak and thus considered unsatisfactory to meet the rising demands of intercultural communication. Since traditional teaching methods have been deemed insufficient to develop the oral skills of learners, educators have been urged to provide students with 21st century skills that are geared towards creativity and critical thinking in order to generate new knowledge. Hence, the emergence of elearning and its Web 2.0 tools have begun to offer more opportunities in the areas of language application, while encouraging independent learning. In view of the potential of this learning style, Edmodo; a social learning platform, could be implemented as an effective tool in the classroom to improve Chinese oral skills. Accordingly, this research aims to develop a web-based learning model using Edmodo as a self-directed learning tool to develop Chinese oral skills. To examine the effectiveness of this model, a comparative study was conducted between two groups of students in the Level II Chinese Honours degree program at the University of Kelaniya. Each group included twenty students, of which one group followed traditional face-to-face methods of learning, while the other used the Edmodo application for a period of five months as a platform for language learning. The results of this study revealed that students in the experimental group using Edmodo developed higher oral proficiency than their counterpart. Moreover, the former also acquired greater levels of motivation and self-confidence in learning Chinese oral communication. The findings of this study encourage Chinese language learners to benefit from the use of technology in language learning and strive for better academic performance.
