Mandarin non-fiction: Eye movements and the psychology of how we read and process words

Suitable for 14 to 19-year-olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom or shared with students online.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 Mandarin and Psychology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This Mandarin teaching resource explains the work of Professors Simon P. Liversedge, Xuejun Bai, Guoli Yan and Dr Chuanli Zang, at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK and Tianjin Normal University in China, who use eye movement methodology to identify how people read and understand Chinese writing. They have developed the multi-constituent unit hypothesis, and hope to resolve some of the scientific debates surrounding the cognitive processes behind reading.
• If you or your students have a question for the team, you can submit it online – go to the article using the Futurum link below and scroll to the bottom of the page. Simon and Chuanli will reply!
• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on the team’s research, and tasks them to think more about how we read.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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