Audiovisual narratives and cooperative learning in Chinese as a foreign language

Abstract

This article presents an innovative pedagogical experience in university-level Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) education that integrates narrative reading and cooperative audiovisual production. The study explores how cooperative audiovisual production and multimodal storytelling may contribute to the development of linguistic competence, learner motivation, and intercultural engagement in CFL learning contexts.Implemented over three academic years (2022–2025) at the Complutense University of Madrid, the project combined the reading of Chinese short stories with the cooperative creation of audiovisual narratives inspired by those texts. A longitudinal mixed-methods design was adopted, integrating quantitative data from evaluation rubrics and student questionnaires with qualitative evidence derived from classroom observations, reflective journals, and content analysis.The findings suggest that cooperative audiovisual production may support the development of pronunciation, narrative organization, learner motivation, and creative participation, while also fostering symbolic and intercultural reflection through collaborative meaning-making. The results further highlight the importance of teacher mediation in sustaining group cohesion, creative autonomy, and pedagogical continuity throughout the production process.The study concludes that integrating audiovisual storytelling into CFL instruction may contribute to more participatory, multimodal, and culturally situated language learning experiences. At the same time, the exploratory nature of the study and the limited sample size invite cautious interpretation and point to the need for further research across diverse educational contexts.