C4Chinese_eStorybook賽馬會友趣學中文 app for iPhone and iPad

1. C-for-Chinese@JC

C-for-Chinese@JC-eStorybook is an interactive app equipped with augmented reality (AR) technology to support the learning of Chinese for learners with age around 3 to 8 years old, especially for children of ethnic minority families in Hong Kong. The app is designed to accompany the series of C-for-Chinese@JC storybooks developed by the team of “C-for-Chinese@JC Project Team 3 on learning resources” led by Dr Wai Ip LAM of The University of Hong Kong.

2. Principles of Design

The design of series of C-for-Chinese@JC Storybooks and eStorybooks follows the principles of culturally responsive (CR) instruction and language focused curriculum (LCF). The design focuses on modeling how Chinese language is organized by pairing meaning and expression to accomplish communication enriched with funds of knowledge of ethnic minority families and communities. Children are able to learn high quality Chinese oral and written language by interacting with the stories in the series.

3. Organization of the Series

The series of Storybooks, and its electronic companion eStorybooks, comprises 18 stories in 3 groups, namely for children in nursey class (ie stories 1st-6th for K1), lower class (ie stories 7-12th for K2), and upper class (ie stories 13-18th for K3). The stories revolve around the lives and studies of five children, including ethnic monitories and Chinese native speaker characters. Each story is written in three language levels catering for children with diverse Chinese language abilities. Each level with its stories has particular learning objectives on Chinese vocabularies and sentence construction with reference to the Cognitive Frame perspective.

4. Teacher and Parents’ Guidebooks

Each story comes with a teacher guidebook and a parents’ guidebook. The teacher guidebook includes a complete set of learning and teaching activities and learning aids. The parents’ guidebook focuses on the connection between the story and the cultural funds of knowledge from the family in order to help parents guide children to interact with the story at home. Teachers and parents can adjust the learning and teaching activities based on their situation and needs.

5. eStorybooks

The eStorybooks digitize the printed version of the series to a multimodal (with reading aloud function) and multilingual (with translation function) version. Interactive games enhanced with augmented reality function are built in each story to emphasize the main objectives of the story in a playful and fun way.

‘C-for-Chinese@JC Project’ is funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust (the Trust) and the copyright of this App is owned by the Trust.

Target users: Children of ethnic minorities in kindergarten or junior primary learning stage.

Users: Children, parents, and teachers

Acknowledgement: Royalty free music and sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com