An Empirical Study on Taichi Digital Human Teachers Empowering International Chinese Language Education

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, digital human teachers are creating new opportunities for international Chinese language education; however, theoretical mechanisms and practical pathways grounded in objective pedagogical effectiveness remain underdeveloped. Taichi, which integrates physical movements with cultural vocabulary, serves as a comprehensive teaching paradigm for designing digital human teachers. Taking Taichi as the medium, this study constructs a framework combining embodied cognition theory and cognitive load theory and conducts an empirical investigation involving 482 beginner Chinese language learners in New Zealand. The results reveal that the synergistic interaction of body, environment, and cognition dynamically regulates learners’ intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive loads. Building on this mechanism, the developed pathway consists of a three-in-one configuration of “appearance, animation, and voice”, a two-step language acquisition approach of “speech before synchronization and native language before Chinese,” and a four-dimensional movement acquisition approach characterized by “slow speed, decomposition and repetition, multimodal instructions, and audio-visual emphasis.” This pathway significantly enhances immediate movement mastery and rapid language memorization. Beyond reducing the burden of teacher demonstrations and improving instructional efficiency, the pathway can be extended to broader cultural and linguistic teaching contexts, providing more foundations for the engineering transformation of international Chinese language education.

Keywords

digital human teacher, international Chinese language education, Embodied Cognition Theory, Cognitive Load Theory

source

International Journal of Chinese Language Education; Jun 2026; Issue No. 19; p. 83-104

Language

Chinese