The ‘DIY Audiobooks’ Launch Event and Award Ceremony

Wednesday, March 29, 2023 - 10:45

On March 9, students from the Department of Chinese at Maynooth University participated in a launch event of their works - the 'DIY Audiobooks' award ceremony. The project leader, Dr Meishan Zhang, presided over the award ceremony. Dr Zhouxiang Lu, the head of the Chinese Department, Ms Yang Cheng, the instructor of the Year 3 team, and Ms Can Shao, the instructor of the Year 1 team, presented awards to the 16 students from 4 participating teams.
 
The 'DIY Audiobooks' project selected 11 random pictures from illustrator Anne Laval's ‘Story Box’, and the participating teams freely arranged and combined them, wrote stories, dubbed them, and finally made them into audiobooks. This project aims to create an experience for the fun of telling stories in Chinese, thereby cultivating students' imagination and creativity, improving classroom vitality and exploring richer ways of expression in Chinese.
 
After discussion and voting by the Department of Chinese faculty, Ivan Xue, Télio, Sasha and Nkemjika from the second year won the Winner Award for their smooth plot and dubbing. Lee, Linda, Hannah and Edwin's work ‘Journey to Her’ won the Best Creative Award for its continuous reversal of the plot. Caoimhe, Noah, Carrie and Ammarin, from the third year, won the Best Screenplay Award for their profound thinking and high integrity of the story in their work 'Resurrection'. Wen Qian, Jennifer, Hei-Lam and Ling Wen Winnie, first-year students, won the Best Vocals Award for their work ‘Chad & Stephen’ for their excellent Chinese pronunciation and vivid emotional expression. All participating students received Chinese-style prizes funded by the Teaching and Learning Centre and signed their names on the event posters.
 
After the awards ceremony, the students watched all their audiobooks for the first time, and the classroom burst into applause. They expressed that they enjoyed the process of writing stories very much. After overcoming various difficulties, they were satisfied and proud of their work, and each group of works had surprises. After the event, all four audiobooks have been officially released on the ‘Chinese Culture and Language’ Channel on Youtube. The list of winners and video links are as follows:
 
Winner
《救援行动》 The Rescue
Team: Ivan, Télio, Sasha, Nkemjika
 
Best Vocals
《查德&史蒂芬》Chad & Stephen
Team: Wen Qian, Jennifer, Hei-Lam, Ling Wen Winnie
 
Best Screenplay
《复活》Resurrection
Team: Caoimhe, Noah, Ammarin, Carrie
 
Best Creativity
《寻她记》Journey to Her
Team: Lee,Linda,Hannah,Edwin
 
DIY Audiobooks Project
The 2022 SPARK Initiative - Change one thing and do it well
Funded by the Office of the Dean of Teaching and Learning 
Organised by Department of Chinese, School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Maynooth University