Improving Portuguese writing skills by using a Chinese microblogging platform: an exploratory study

Abstract

As a common limiting factor in foreign language learning, the absence of an authentic linguistic context and the scarcity of opportunities to use the target language outside the classroom are considered the biggest problems in acquiring Portuguese for Chinese learners. The popularization of social media among students enables a new approach to improve language learning and we chose to focus specifically on studying the impact of the usage of Weibo, a Chinese microblogging platform, with regard to Chinese learners’ Portuguese written skills. For this purpose, a set of activities during 14 weeks was conducted on Weibo with the participation of five sophomores of the Portuguese Studies (PE) course and five Portuguese students who took Mandarin lessons in the academic year 2018/2019 and five students of the same grade and course and a native Portuguese teacher in the academic year 2019/2020. Two identical tests were carried out before and after the activities by all the second-grade students of PE, whose responses were analyzed qualitatively. In accordance with the results achieved, generally the participants demonstrated a better behavior regarding verbal agreement and word spelling in Portuguese. In comparison with the participants of the first intervention, those of the second intervention, who accomplished activities without the interference of their first language, obtained a higher score in the reading comprehension part of the test. This revealed the potential and efficiency of applying Weibo in Portuguese learning.