World Languages Department

Essential Knowledge and Skills

Chinese I (Mandarin) is designed for students who have little or no Chinese language background. The purpose of the course is to lay the groundwork for the study of modern Chinese. The concepts include basic listening, pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar fundamentals as essential elements in reading, writing, and understanding elementary Chinese. This course includes basic elements of the Chinese culture, customs, philosophy, and history.

Indicators of Student Learning

Upon the completion of this course, students will be able to:

Cultural Knowledge

• Distinguish the difference between traditional and simplified Chinese characters

• Appreciate and understand the various important Chinese festivals and holidays

• Learn to master the use of chopsticks

Oral Communication

• Greet one another

• Introduce themselves and others

• Give information on nationality, age and occupation

• Describe objects

• Talk about the weather

• Describe their likes and dislikes

• Talk about hobbies and abilities

• Talk about sufficiency and lack

• Complete a transaction in a shop

• Count objects

• Talk about dates and times

• Formulate questions and make suggestions

Written Communication

• Write approximately 200 – 260 simplified Chinese Characters

• Write down accurately the pinyin they have heard

• Answer simple questions about what they have read

Listening Comprehension

• Understand basic instructions when taking tests or doing homework

• Respond appropriately to questions and statements in Chinese from the teacher and fellow students

• Make accurate use of the four main tones

Reading Skills • Read short dialogues and narratives

• Use and interpret various regalia in Chinese, e.g. timetables, menus and advertisements

• Find Chinese websites and distinguish which apply to class projects

Technology

• Access readily the Internet for required audio homework assignments, spelling lists, syllabus, classroom procedures, project information, other online resources.

• Present a region of China to the class using a PowerPoint presentation or creating a travel brochure.

• Create thematic movie or video presentation for Foreign Language month

• Email homework and assignments to teacher

• Exposed to Chinese media such as TV shows, movies, music

Assessment

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Demonstrate competency in listening comprehension by responding appropriately to the teacher, fellow students, and classroom audio CDs.

• Demonstrate competency in speaking by carrying on a simple conversation on topics covered in class; by introducing themselves and others; by describing pictures and photographs in the classroom; by asking questions in class.

• Demonstrate competency in reading comprehension by answering questions and following directions in the texts, on tests and spelling quizzes; by summarizing what they have read in the textbook and other materials; by answering basic comprehension questions about these reading.

• Demonstrate competency in writing-by-writing legibly complete sentence answers to questions; by summarizing readings; notes taking in the handbook; and by composing short essays on chapter topics.

• Demonstrate competency in cultural differences by expressing differences in and tolerance towards Chinese and American customs, traditions, cultures and attitudes as simply “different” and not “better or worse.”