Digital multimodal composing as a translanguaging space

Multimodality and translanguaging are groundbreaking concepts that researchers and teachers in second language education have increasingly embraced over the past decade. Despite their potential to transform traditional monolingual and monomodal approaches to assessment design, these concepts remain largely unexplored in Chinese language teaching, particularly as legitimate assessment strategies. This study was conducted with a large group of ab initio beginners of Chinese at a Western university. It first analyses students’ digital multimodal composing (DMC) projects, a video assessment designed to enable students to showcase their learning achievements multimodally and multilingually. It then discusses the challenges students encountered when engaging with this novel assessment approach for the first time. Findings demonstrate that in this DMC project students created a translanguaging space with rich trans-semiotic resources, actively engaging in communication through their newly acquired language despite being absolute beginners in their first few weeks of learning. Furthermore, due to the novelty of the assessment design, the study also found that some students encountered challenges such as uneven technical skills and the complexity of the assessment design. The study suggests that teachers should reconceptualise their approach to teaching Chinese in the digital age, focusing on empowering learners to apply their language skills in real-life communication contexts. Building ownership of their L2 learning can strengthen their motivation to learn Chinese more effectively and creatively.