Project Details

Project Introduction

Funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, “Jockey Club VR Project for Enhancing Chinese Language Literacy” is organised by the Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), in collaboration with Hong Kong Literature Research Centre, Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research, and SKH St. Mary’s Church Mok Hing Yiu College, and with the support of The Chinese University of Hong Kong Library. Spanning across three and a half years, the project aims at harnessing virtual reality (VR) technologies to enhance the effectiveness of learning and teaching Chinese language. Immersed in the virtual literary scenes, students can learn how to thoroughly observe places, communities and people. It will strengthen their Chinese reading and writing proficiency, literary literacy and humanistic care. The Project is expected to reach up to 7000 students in headcount. An online library of VR-integrated Chinese literary teaching resources will be in open access.

The Meaning of the Project Name

VR technologies can create anything out of nothing. Students in the classroom can be instantly “teleported” to the places that the literary works portray. As commonly said in Chinese, a scene triggers one’s feeling. Now, a VR scene can also do the same.

Project Rationale

Requirements of Chinese Language Curriculum in Secondary Education
While writing, students should：

demonstrate descriptive writing skills to depict people, objects and scenes;

connect their daily life experience and acquired knowledge to compose the content; and

read and listen, and use association and imagination skills more often to enrich the content.

— The Suggested Learning Areas in Secondary Chinese Language Education (Curriculum Development Council)

VSDiscrepancy

Students’ performance

Their writings lack details and resonation.

They can only narrate the process of an event but cannot concretely describe people and scenes.

Their writings fail to convey sincere and delicate feelings.

— Report on the HKDSE Results in Chinese Language Paper 2 (2016)(Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority)

Analysis of the Discrepancy

VR-based Language Teaching -> A Multidirectional Solution

Highlights of the Syllabus	Highlights of the Syllabus	Effects of VR-based Teaching
1. Broaden language learning	Insufficient sense and experience of observation	Overcome the limitations of time and space that emerge in traditional classroom teaching
2. Align with the development of Information Technology in Education	Unidirectional teaching	Integrate e-Learning into Chinese language education
3. Construct situations and arouse emotions	Inadequate understanding and caring of people, things and communities	Harness an educational VR platform for practicing observation Build a strong sense of observation Foster situated learning
4. Promote moral and affective education: care and solicitude		Select individualized viewpoints Engage in affective experience and in-depth reflection

The use of EduVenture®VR in Chinese Writing Lessons

Traditional Teaching of Writing	VR-based Teaching of Writing	Construct situations ↓ Observe ↓ Accumulate learning ↓ Arouse emotions
Imagination	Observation
Use the previously acquired knowledge	Use the knowledge newly gained from the VR learning environment
Create from imaging	Create from sensing and experiencing
Teachers choose and portray the subjects for writing	Students choose their own subjects for writing
Literary walks	Literary walks in the classroom

Visualizing the realistic scenes helps students observe the community:

Enhance their sense of the city and discover the uniqueness of the community

Share their own viewpoints and show their humanistic care

Framework

Project Implementation

1.Teaching

Workflow of the VR-based Teaching of Writing ：

VR-based Teaching Schedule ：

2.Teacher Professional Development

Landscape expedition

Open classroom and seminar

Technical training

3.Educational Research
The Project will conduct educational research based on the data collected from the participating students and teachers, aiming to investigate the relationship between VR-based teaching and Chinese language education. The research results will be in open access.
Below are the examples of the research topics:

How VR-based teaching improves students’ Chinese writing proficiency

The enhancement of VR-based teaching skills: from the perspective of students’ learning performance

How e-Learning enhances language education

The situation, challenge and improvement of using VR teaching materials: from the perspective of Chinese language teachers

Professional development of VR-based teaching for secondary teachers

How VR-based teaching changes the educational ecosystem in secondary schools

The challenges and solutions in Chinese language learning: students’ language proficiency, personal thinking and interest in language learning

The enhancement of students’ interest in learning Chinese language through VR-based teaching

Service Targets and Participating Schools

The project is targeted at the junior form students from 12 secondary schools. They will participate in the project in two separate phases：

First phase (Invited participation): 6 schools

Second phase (Open recruitment): 6 schools

Every participating school will be given:
Support

Guidance of material design, teaching practice and assessment

Training and technical support of EduVenture®VR

An account of EduVenture®VR with access to the teaching materials of other schools

Guidance of filming 360-degree photos and videos

Equipment

A 360-degree HD camera

45 mobile phones

45 VR goggles

A tablet charging cart