Online Chinese Courses, an Evaluative Study during the First Coronavirus Lockdown in Lebanon

Abstract

The aim of this study is to objectively analyze the provision of online Chinese courses during the Coronavirus lockdown in Lebanon, concerning its success and its disadvantages. Offering online courses is a new challenge for both Chinese teachers and learners; therefore, after around eight weeks of online courses, we put a questionnaire online addressed to the adult Chinese learners in Lebanon in order to investigate the results of the Chinese online courses.
Quantitative research method was used to collect the data. After analysis, the success points have been found: the online Chinese courses are more effective to train students’ reading, listening and speaking skills; online Chinese courses can build a stronger emotional link between teachers and students. The disadvantages are problems which need to be solved in future online Chinese courses, such as how to teach the writing of Chinese characters in distant education model and how to present new knowledge in a more teacher-student interactive way.
Based on the teaching experience and the statistics, the researcher then proposed methods for the further improvement of the online Chinese courses. Both teachers and students should clearly understand the difference between traditional Chinese courses and online Chinese courses; teachers should adjust Chinese language learning steps and aims to make them more suitable for online courses; students should fully use the advantage of high-technology. Coronavirus is a disaster, but it could be turned into an opportunity to improve online Chinese teaching if teachers and students can join their efforts.