The Key(board) to unlocking a safe translanguaging space for Chinese-as-an-Additional-Language learners: <em>TypeDuck</em>, a Cantonese keyboard with multilingual translation prompts — The Association Specialists
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  2. SESSION 7: Translingual, immersion, heritage, and minority education
  3. The Key(board) to unlocking a safe translanguaging space for Chinese-as-an-Additional-Language learners: TypeDuck, a Cantonese keyboard with multilingual translation prompts

The Key(board) to unlocking a safe translanguaging space for Chinese-as-an-Additional-Language learners: TypeDuck, a Cantonese keyboard with multilingual translation prompts (20329)

Chaak Ming Lau 1 , Michelle Man-Long Pang 1 , Wai Huen Ann To 1 , Grace Wing-Yan Chan 1
  1. The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong

Despite current efforts by a handful of frontiers in CAL education to incorporate multilingual materials in their teaching (Wang, 2023), low Chinese literacy proficiency still poses significant challenges in CAL learning, and the reason for this low proficiency remains ill-identified.

Research by Mok and Yu (2018) highlights the potential to leverage South Asian students’ Cantonese speaking skills in Chinese learning, and shows promising results in applying Jyutping keyboard in a series of intervention studies, but less proficient students cannot benefit from this strategy due to significant barriers in establishing sound-character mappings. 

To address this, TypeDuck, a Jyutping-based Cantonese input keyboard with instant word-based translation prompts in English, Urdu, Hindi, Indonesian and Nepali, was developed in 2023. Users input 'spellings' that trigger a pop-up menu offering target candidates arranged by frequency. TypeDuck acknowledges the need for a translingual approach to CAL-learning and provides essential accessibility support while empowering learners to express themselves textually, with full conscious control over character choice. This design affirms their linguistic identity as translingual language users by drawing upon learners' linguistic knowledge and giving them agency (Li, 2018). 

The tool was introduced to local secondary and primary schools with ethnically diverse language backgrounds. 

When teachers adopted TypeDuck in their CAL-classes, we saw an emergence of a safe translanguaging space: teachers were overtly granting permission to students to engage with Chinese translingually using TypeDuck, and students were not reprimanded for actively drawing upon their own complex and rich linguistic repertoire and making meaning across languages.

Pilot feedback sessions with CAL-learners have shown positive responses, indicating that TypeDuck flattens barriers associated with Chinese learning and reignites learners' motivation to pursue further training.

  1. Li, W. (2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied linguistics, 39(1), 9-30.
  2. Mok, P., Lee, C. W., & Yu, A. C. (2018). Perception and production of Cantonese tones by South Asians in Hong Kong. In Proceedings of Speech Prosody (pp. 458-462). Poznán.
  3. Wang, D. (2023). Translanguaging as a social justice strategy: the case of teaching Chinese to ethnic minority students in Hong Kong. Asia Pacific Education Review, 24(3), 473-486.