A Digital Future of Diversity, Connectivity, and Sustainability

Abstract

In a mobile society where information and knowledge become accessible to anyone, anywhere, and anytime on the internet, online education has been transformed fundamentally. By the end of 2020, Mandarin Chinese was taught to over 20 million people in over 180 countries around the world. By critically reviewing 15 recent studies from 2013 to 2021 on mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) in teaching and learning Chinese as a second or foreign language (CSL/CFL), this chapter emphasizes the need for pedagogical diversity in goals, practices, and context. In the second theme of ‘connectivity', the new theory of online education connectivism is applied to evaluate the official Chinese language learning mobile app named ‘e-Learn Chinese'. In the final theme of ‘sustainability', it demonstrates an ecosystem of MALL through an ecological perspective based on a critical discussion of the mostly reviewed ten mobile language learning apps, which could innovate sustainable pedagogies in a life-long learning society.