Students Taking Charge: Creating and Web-casting TV Programs for Language Learning - A Whole School Approach

Abstract

This study examines the implementation of Putonghua TV program production and web-casting in a secondary school in Hong Kong. It emphasizes the importance of autonomous language learning and adopts the Constructivist Approach. It then examines the perceptions of all the students studying the language, and the teachers involved, in order to find out the extent this approach can help students to generate the need to learn. It finds that students take more initiative to learn the language, and their learning motive increase at a considerable rate. And they shared that they had great fun in the process of both the production and the web-casting. The conceptual framework of this study suggests that the greater extent the students take charge, the students will be more motivated to learn the language. With students’ hard work, more than 100 TV programs are seriously made. They are creative and interesting to watch too. Teachers expressed that lessons were more enjoyable, and the amount of students-teacher interaction also increased. The technology is proved available and user friendly enough to serve the purpose. It is suggested that the support from the whole school greatly contributes to the success of the webcasting.