ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews research on the use of technology in the teaching and learning of Chinese as a foreign/second language (CFL). Based on a historical overview of CFL CALL (computer-assisted language learning) practices in the past four decades, this chapter examines the role of technology and its effectiveness in facilitating CFL acquisition. More specifically, this chapter examines the use of technology to enrich input and opportunities for learning, to facilitate learner interaction and feedback, to encourage personalized and collaborative learning, and finally, to enable a better understanding of CFL learners’ language, acquisition process and strategies. Also discussed in this chapter are some best pedagogical practices. These include the use of multimedia to help acquire Chinese characters, the use of electronic-writing to reduce learner anxiety and burden, the construction of learner corpora to identify learner errors and learning strategies, as well as the use of speech technology to improve pronunciation. This chapter concludes by calling for both continued and new research efforts on exploring the use of technology to enhance language input and output, learner interaction, as well as the teacher’s facilitating role.
