Awardee: Liz Carter
Semester of Award: 2025-2026
Materials Awarded: A subscription to the Chinese Writer app for 25 students across two introductory Chinese classes.
Project Description:
Unlike most other languages, writing Chinese requires a vast amount of memorization of characters, which is usually accomplished via handwriting each character over and over. Through the Fergusson grant, I was able to secure a batch subscription for all of my introductory Chinese students and give them the option to either conduct their character practice by hand or to use the app, which provided a combination of writing practice, pronunciation prompting, and flash-card like review. The app also immediately provided feedback to students as to the kinds of errors they were making in character writing, which is impossible with regular character handwriting homework. Many students reported that the app made it easy for them to review vocabulary and practice writing characters whenever they had downtime, as their phones were usually readily accessible. Three students also reported that the app experience was far more effective for them than writing out the characters by hand and became “superusers” of the app.
Overall, the incorporation of this app helped me determine at no cost to the students that this alternative modality could make writing practice more accessible and effective for some students. Since writing is the hardest skill in Chinese to master, this has been an important way to make the language less intimidating to beginning students.
Other faculty considering incorporating an app into their teaching may learn from some of my challenges: 1) students with Android and iOS devices may encounter different issues – I had to develop several workarounds for accessing the vocabulary packs because the Android version of the app had slightly more limited functionality. 2) The creators of the app were not very organized or communicative. I had to repeatedly email them to receive a response to some issues. They also accidentally charged me over $1,000 – this was ultimately refunded but was a nasty surprise just before the holidays. 3) A full class session may be necessary to familiarize students with the app and discover what potential issues may need to be addressed.