CLTA newsletter Sept. 2019

CLTA NEWSLETTER January 2019
University of Arizona Team
Launches New Teaching and
Research Resource,
DormTalk
We are pleased to announce that the
DormTalk website is ready for us to share with the
CLTA community. The DormTalk website
provides ten modules
(https://dormtalk.arizona.edu/modules/ ) focusing
on ten different topics that can be readily
incorporated into Chinese language teaching. In
each module, we provide two annotated
conversations that were authentic interactions
between American study abroad students in China
and their Chinese age peers. Age-appropriate
authentic materials are often hard to find in
Chinese language teaching; those that are available
tend to be either too childish (e.g., reading
materials designed for Chinese children) or too
advanced with only adult native Chinese speakers
(e.g., Chinese fictions, or films). The DormTalk
project uses recordings from Chinese L2 learners
and their native Chinese-speaking roommates.
The conversations also show the kinds of culture
shock and language barriers that learners often
encounter in real life, which are often overlooked
in exiting Chinese language teaching materials.
This L2 learner perspective is reflected in the
topics of the conversations that we have selected,
such as discussions about Chinese taxi drivers’
accents (in Language module), or a conversation
about the need to wear masks because of the smog
(Weather). Suggested activities based on authentic tasks are also provided. We hope teachers looking
for supplementary materials to incorporate into their Chinese language classrooms will find our
website useful. We welcome feedback and suggestions from Chinese language teachers and learners.
This project was made possible by two seed grants from the University of Arizona and a
federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education through CERCLL, a Title VI Language
Resource Center. Please contact the project director, Wenhao Diao (wdiao@email.arizona.edu) for
questions or more details.
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