MANDARIN Chinese

Beginning Chinese I is designed for students with little or no experience in learning Chinese. Students develop the basic language skills in a cultural context by understanding and responding to structured social conversations. Starting with the introduction of the Chinese language system including Pinyin, tones, radicals and characters, this course focuses on students' performance of producing simple sentences and brief paragraphs related to the topics of greeting, sharing personal information and preferences, introducing others, making plans about and discussing school life. The corresponding cultural knowledge is introduced at appropriate intervals to enrich students' understanding of Chinese culture. Care is taken to create an authentic learning experience in reading, writing, speaking, and listening in the online environment. Students improve their overall language proficiency through weekly interactions with their teacher and classmates, a variety of internet resources, audio and video materials, and engaging activities of playing games, performing songs and tongue twisters, writing stories, collaborating for projects, taking virtual field trips and acting out roles in movies – we really do have a lot of fun! This course aligns with Cheng and Tsui Integrated Chinese Level I lessons zero through six. By the end of Beginning Chinese I, students will be able to handle the basic functions with structured grammatical patterns in daily communication and gain a solid foundation for future learning.

Beginning Chinese II students continue to improve their Chinese skills by using both structured and created language. Cultural connections are made at appropriate intervals to familiarize students with the Chinese speaking world. Students learn to initiate and participate in daily communication, apply new vocabulary and more complex sentence patterns to fulfill the functions of expressing individual needs, describe circumstances, compare the similarities and differences of phenomenon, and demonstrate culturally contextualized understanding. Students improve character literacy, authentic language production and cultural competency. A variety of audio, visual, and textual materials are carefully selected based on the interests and preferences of the students, which optimizes the effectiveness of the online personalized experience. This course aligns with Cheng and Tsui Integrated Chinese Level I lessons six through 12. By the end of Beginning Chinese II, students will be able to write journals, compose short Chinese songs and rhymes, share about topics related to their school life, and produce refined language freely at the paragraph level on essential social communication.

Intermediate Chinese I students develop their essential Chinese language skills while gaining a deeper understanding of Chinese culture through engaging with various audio, visual, textual materials and increasing authentic language application experience. The course is designed for students who have had at least two years of Chinese study, and takes them into structured communication through comprehensive skill-enhancement with abundant task-based practical grammatical structures and sentence patterns. Students engage in group work, online seminars, real-time speaking practice and personalized learning packets to improve constructive conversation skills in Chinese. Students are highly encouraged to enjoy applying Mandarin and to make productive mistakes within the course. This course aligns with Cheng and Tsui Integrated Chinese Level I lessons 11 through 20. By the end of this course, students will acquire substantive vocabulary and structures to creating essays, compose songs and rhymes, discuss written and audio primary sources, and present speeches that are related to a wide variety of popular topics. The goal is to be able to function successfully in daily life in a Chinese-speaking world.

Intermediate Chinese II is a rigorous class that prepares students for the AP® Chinese Language and Culture or Advanced Chinese course the following year. Students develop language competencies, while building proficiency in applying Mandarin in a variety of real-life situations. The course builds through unrehearsed listening and reading texts, engaging essays, authentic projects and virtual field trips. Classroom discussions and debates are added sequentially so that students develop both communication and language learning strategies. A variety of audio, visual, and textual materials are carefully selected based on the interests and preferences of the students, to reflect the diversity of students' lives, school experience, and personal/social issues. Students should be prepared for a range of collaborative and individual activities each week, including speaking in real time with each other and the instructor. Literature learning is embedded in each unit at this level, through which students gain a deeper understand of the important role what idioms plays in Chinese language, and how to apply those idioms in communication. This course aligns with Cheng and Tsui Integrated Chinese Level II lessons 21 through 30. By the end of this course, students will able to relate past, present, and future experiences to conduct complicated daily activities in Mandarin.