Chinese poetry is generally thought to be beyond the reach of beginning and intermediate language learners. Modern mobile computing platforms, however, now make it possible to create highly interactive, hands-on, and personalized learning tools that are ideal for working with the compact textual forms of Tang dynasty poems.
This presentation will consist of two parts. First will be presented the results of a character usage frequency analysis of the entire corpus of Tang poetry and demonstrate its usefulness in assembling an ordered sequence of relatively simple and accessible poems for teaching purposes. Second, Professor Porter will demonstrate a series of mobile-based Chinese language learning tools for presenting these poems to students of Chinese. In combination, these tools can help even an early-stage student move from a first introduction to a multi-modal mastery of short, deeply evocative poems, providing the student with both an intimate glance into the workings of Chinese poetic language as well as great personal satisfaction.