Embodied Learning of Chinese Characters Through Typing and Handwriting in the Multimodal Virtual Space: Implications for a Digital Future

The forced shift of almost every aspect of learning online in emergency remote teaching (ERT) during the pandemic further encouraged typing and marginalised handwriting in the digital era. Against this backdrop, a central question is how these two writing modalities are co-deployed to assist the study of Chinese characters—a complex writing system conventionally requiring labour-intensive handwriting due to its orthographic nature, especially among Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) beginners. Through a review of the benefits and limitations of handwriting and typing for the study of Chinese characters, the chapter first outlines how embodied cognition is engaged and manifested in two writing modalities during the learning process. With survey data collected from 38 CFL learners and 20 instructors from 6 English-speaking countries, it investigates whether and to what extent the potential of embodied cognition engaged in handwriting and typing has been realised and utilised in the online learning environment to assist with character acquisition. It sheds light on the application of embodiment as a theoretical framework at a time when virtual, multimodal environments are becoming the new norm for distributed and extended teaching and learning in the digital era.