#10. MOST Multimedia

Specifically targeting literacy and reading comprehension in young children, I'm surprised how much the MOST Multimedia system speaks to me on a personal level. When I first attended public school, I could barely understand or speak English. It was a side effect of growing up in a Chinese family speaking mainly Cantonese. My parents prepared me as much as they could while struggling with English themselves.

For the first few years, I was probably an at-risk student, not able to keep up with the material and pace of the class as well as my peers did, so I can empathize with the attitudes and sentiments of students who are part of the MOST Multimedia programs. I did not have the opportunity to participate in such a program; computers were rarely used at the time. Fortunately, some very caring elementary school teachers tutored me one on one in English and saved me from my learning situation. Thanks to my teachers, my English competency was academically acceptable by second grade.

But...that's not the end of my story. I can also attest, from personal experience, the effectiveness of using multimedia to learn a language. Here's the twist: it was to learn Chinese, not English.

Despite the struggles with the English language, I remain proud of my Chinese heritage and continued speaking Cantonese with my family. When I was around thirteen, my parents installed a satellite dish that received Mandarin Chinese channels. I was enamored by the entertaining shows, so novel and different from American TV and yet strangely familiar. The problem was, I could not enjoy the channels to the full extent because I did not understand the Mandarin dialect at all.



To briefly explain the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin, they are two different dialects of Chinese. They have different tones and pronunciation but share the same written language. My parents grew up with Cantonese and learned Mandarin in school. They only spoke Cantonese with me because it was their native tongue.

Continuing on...instead of simply giving up the Mandarin channel, I decided to learn the language. Through watching the TV series with distinct characters and plot, I trained my ear to the languge and repeated bits and pieces of dialogue to myself. A vital component to this process was the Chinese subtitles in the shows. I matched them with Cantonese song lyrics in order to learn the meaning and develop reading comprehension. The written form was the bridge between Cantonese and Mandarin. I adopted a strategy to evaluate and categorize characters, like learning first those characters that appeared most frequently, next selecting combination characters that expressed one meaning, and then noticing the pattern of a complete sentence.

To me, learning Mandarin was like putting together a puzzle.

Though there was no lesson plan, I did have a learning goal: to understand the Chinese shows and maximize entertainment value! Eventually, I began to comprehend the distinctions and similarities between Mandarin and Cantonese. After about three years of this type of self-paced independent study, I was able to comprehend and enjoy Mandarin TV. When I encountered a new word, I saw it as a learning opportunity. This process brought me from knowing a handful of basic characters to being able to read an entire Chinese newspaper article.

Well, that's my story. The method was unconventional and I would not necessarily recommend it as a "program" for a student. However, I do believe that multimedia in the form of TV shows, video stories, and songs plus motivation and some sense of direction made it work for me. But there were some ways it did not work. While taking Mandarin Chinese courses in college, my reading and listening comprehension were well-developed but my speaking ability was quite weak. I think it was a result of the overly isolated learning environment, lack of collaboration, and no direct use of the language. This emphasizes the importance of dialogue practice and interaction with other individuals when learning a new language.

Referring back to the article, I agree with Bransford on the benefits of multimedia as a learning tool. Presented with dynamic visual information, students are able to create mental models and interpret language better than with plain text (Bransford, 1996, p.231). We should also understand the concerns associated with multimedia; video and movies for educational purposes should direct students towards being active rather than passive viewers (Bransford, 1996, p.228). Since the MOST Multimedia model has a very specific target audience, young children who are at-risk learners, the age, behaviors, and perhaps ethnic background need to be taken into consideration. Each case may be unique so I would recommend a pre-program evaluation of students before program development and implementation.

References:

Bransford, J. D., Sharp, D. M., Vye, N. J., Goldman, S. R., Hasselbring, T. S., Goin, L., O'Banion, K., Livernois, J., Saul, E., & the Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt (1996). MOST Environments for accelerating literacy development. In S. Vosniadou, E. DeCorte, R. Glaser, & H. Mandl (Eds.), International perspectives on the design of technology-supported learning environments (pp. 223-255). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.