CHNS 112: Intensive Introductory Modern Chinese

 

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Instructor: Mr. Jianhua Bai (427-5530)
Office: 112 Ascension Hall (Bai) Office Hours: 2:00-4:00 M.T.W.
Class Schedule: 10:10-11:00 (M. T. W.) 9:40 – 11:00 Thursday

Classrooms: M.W. in CHL 114; T. Th. in ASC 202
AT Practice Sessions: 4:10, 5:10 and 7:10 Tue. Thur. and Sunday.

Required Texts
Integrated Chinese, Level 1, Part 2 (IC) by Yuehua Liu and Tao-chung Yao et al.

Integrated Chinese Workbook, (ICW) Level 1, Part 2

Access the audio files
http://eres.library.denison.edu/eres/default.aspx
In the search box on the front page, type in Bai, and click on Search. Then Click on the course number: KEN-CHNS111Y. Enter the password and click on Accept.

Video Clips of Survival Chinese (on-line)

Supplementary Materials

Click here to use a flash card web site for studing the new words of each lesson.

Click here to listen to the recordings of the text and do more exercises.

Click here to practice your vocabulary.

Click here to go to a web site to practice your sounds and tones.

Click here for another web site to practice sounds and tones.

Click here to go to a USC webpage to practice chracters.

Click here to go to a tool that help you create wordlists of your own texts.

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Course Description
This is the basic introductory language course in Modern Standard Chinese (Putonghua). This course will develop students' basic communicative competence in the Chinese language and their understanding of the Chinese culture. Throughout the course, students develop their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills across the three communicative modes: interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational. In the first semester, the pronunciation and some basic grammar will be taught. The bulk of in-class work will be devoted to developing oral and aural skills. There will also be an introduction to the Chinese writing system.

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Weekly Routine

1. Explanation
    The instructor will introduce and explain the content. Content here refers to the communicative tasks and the vocabulary, grammar, and cultural information that are required for accomplishing the communicative tasks specified. In order to ensure effective instruction and learning it is crucial that everyone prepares well before class: learn the new words, go through the texts and listen to the tape-recordings of the chapter at least onece. It is a good idea to work in pairs or small groups.

2. Practice
    A foreign language is acquired only as a consequence of using that language. The purpose of the practice classes is to build each week's new material into an increasingly versatile proficiency. Practice is the most important activity in this course. Every minute is valuable to you. Every class meeting contributes, cumulatively, to the attainment of your personal objective.
    To practice means to interact with all others in the class. Therefore, active participation in the practice class activities (AT sessions) is essential for our success in this course. In addition to the practice classes you will also have regular home assignment, either paper-pencil or on the computer. Each week you will need to complete the workbook exercises and turn them in no later than Friday. Homework turned in late will be corrected, but not credited. Please note, for the listening section, you need to listen to the recordings and complete the listening exericises.

3. Evaluation
    Evaluation provides each student multiple opportunities to demonstrate incremental skill development over discrete segments of material. It provides feedback for both  teaching and learning. Each weekly evaluation is cumulative, including all previous material plus the most recent week's new material.

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Assignments and Evaluation
    The final letter grade assigned represents the judgement of the following aspects:
---the weekly quizzes =15 points, character quizzes=5 points (Tuesday for the first part and Thur. for the second part)
---class participation=20 points
---assignments=15 points, due every Monday. Late arrivals will earn no credits.
---cultural project=5 points: The Culture Project (3-5 pages in English or Chinese or a combination of both): 1. Identity a topic of your own interest such as customs, festivals, food, family and kinship terms etc. (by early Feb.). 2. Narrow your topic to a few specific questions. (by the end of Feb.). 3. Gather data to answer your questions. You can use information from the Internet, books, journals, newspapers or interviews with native speakers etc. The paper is due the end of April.

---MidTerm Exam (20 points, Week 7) and Final Exam (20points, 8:30-10:30, May 8)

MLL ATTENDANCE POLICY


Guidelines for Preparing the Speaking Evaluation
The criterion for evaluating your speaking performance is to see how well you can accomplish the specified communicative tasks that require the following.  1) Good pronunciation and intonation (a good way for preparing for this is to listen to the tapes in addition to participating in the AT classes). 2) Correct use of vocabulary and grammatical patterns (A good technique is to practice the patterns with a classmate and correct each other whenever necessary). It is easy to read and understand the explanation in the text, but UNDERSTANDING the notes cannot ensure your accurate USE of the vocabulary and grammatical patterns). 3) Fluency, which does not equal speed; a fluent conversation should be natural, interactive and meaningful. 4) Quantity, which means you should always try and use as many as you can of the words and grammatical patterns we have learned so far.

   Guidelines for Preparing the Listening, Reading and Writing Evaluation
The criterion for evaluating your listening, reading and writing is to see how well you can recognize the learned materials and how well you can use them in writing to communicate. Some of the test items will include 1) listening comprehension questions, 2) using words in your own sentences, 3) complete unfinished sentences, 4) put words into correct and meaningful orders, 5) read a passage and answer questions about the passage, 6) the formats that you find from the IC Workbook.

Some of the useful learning techniques include 1) listening to the dialogues and workbook passages regularly. 2) Semantic map, putting semantically similar words together on one page for effective memorization. For instance you can put words about family together. 3) Learning to relate to the parts of the new words to the parts of words that you already know. 4) Reading and listening repeatedly to the lessons. 5) Sentence Anagram: taking the sentence apart into different phrases and put the parts back together into meaningful sentences.  6) Talking to yourself such as composing interesting dialogue that systematically recycle the words that you have learned.Back to the Top


Chinese Table
    Students and teachers of Chinese have dinner together every Tuesday from 5:30 to 6:30 at Peirce Hall (Downstairs).

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Weekly Calendar

Pre-class Work

During-class Activities

Post-class Assignments

W1

1

Purchase textbooks

(Jan. 16)

Intro to the course, review and start IC 11: weather Study IC 11
2 Study and learn the new words of the first half of IC 11.
Listen to the dialogue.
Talking about weather Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part One of ICW.
3 Study the second part of the lesson and come to class with questions if you have any. Talk about weather Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 2 of ICW.
4   Review of IC 11 Study for the weekly test

W2

1

(Jan. 23)

Review and weekly test (Writing)

Study IC12

2

Study and learn the new words of the first half of IC 12.
Listen to the dialogue.

The first part of IC 12: Dining

Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part One of ICW.

3

Study the second part of the lesson and come to class with questions if you have any.

Second half of IC 12: Functioning in more dining situations.

Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 2 of ICW.

4

general review of IC 12

general review of IC 12

Study for the weekly test

W3

1

(Jan. 30)

Review of IC 12 and a weekly test (speaking)

2

Study and learn the new words of the second part of IC 13. Listen to both dialogues of IC13

Learn to " move around (directions)"

Grammar practice: directional phrases and etc

Practice characters, sentence patterns and the dialogue. Do the Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 1 of ICW.

3

Study the lesson and come to class with questions if any.

Study the second half of IC 13: moving around

Recycle and practice the grammar and vocabulary

Practicing reading and writing of the characters of IC 13

Practice characters, sentence patterns and the dialogue. Do the Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 2 of ICW.

4 General review IC 13: describing locations and asking/telling directions  

W4

1

Review

(Feb. 6)

Reveiw of IC 13 and a weekly test (writing)

 

Study IC 14

2

Study and learn the new words of the second half of IC 14.

Listen to both dialogues of IC14.

Continue with IC 14: "going to parties 过生日"

 

Practice characters, sentence patterns and the dialogue. Do the Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 1 of ICW.

3

review

Study the second half of IC 14: moving around

Recycle and practice the grammar and vocabulary

Practicing reading and writing of the characters of IC 14.

Practice characters, sentence patterns and the dialogue. Do the Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 2 of ICW.

4

Listen to the text until you can understand the dialogues well.

Review

Study for the weekly test

W 5

1

review

(Feb. 13)

Review and weekly test (Speaking )

Study/preview IC 15

2

Study and learn the new words of the second half of IC 15

Listen to both dialogues of IC15

First half of IC 15: "Seeing a doctor"

 

Practice characters, sentence patterns and the dialogue. Do the Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 1 of ICW.

3

Study the lesson and come to class with questions if any.

Review of the first part of IC 15 AND Grammar practice

Second half of IC 15

Practice characters, sentence patterns and the dialogue. Do the Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 2 of ICW.

4

Listen to the text until you can understand the dialogue without looking at the book.

Recycle and practice the grammar and vocabulary

Practicing reading and writing of the characters of IC 15.

Study for the weekly test

W6

1

review

(Feb. 20)

Review and weekly test (reading)

Study/preview IC 16

2 Study the lesson and come to class with questions if any start IC 16: "Dating" Practice characters, sentence patterns and the dialogue. Do the Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 1 of ICW.

3

Study and learn the new words of the second half of IC 16

continue with IC 16

Practice characters, sentence patterns and the dialogue. Do the Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 2 of ICW.

4 review

Recycle and practice the grammar and vocabulary

Practicing reading and writing of the characters of IC 16.

Study for the mid-term exam

W7

 

Review

(Feb. 27)

Mid-term review and exam

Review on Monday

More review and the speaking exam on Tuesday

Review on Wedn.

More reviw and the written Exam on Thursday

 

Spring Break

March 3 to 18

Happy spring break!

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Culture Project (3-5 pages in English or Chinese or a combination of both)

1. Identity a topic of your own interest such as customs, festivals, food, family and kinship terms etc.
2. Narrow your topic to a few specific questions.
3. Gather data to answer your questions. You can use information from the Internet, books, journals, newspapers or interviews with native speakers etc.
4. Write a summary of your findings and discuss their implications on learning of the Chinese language or cross-cultural understanding.

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Date

Class Activities

Assignments

W 8 (3/19)

1

Review

Study IC 17

2

Start IC 17

Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 1 of ICW
3

Continue with IC 17 /Describing your living spaces

Continue with the homework
4

Review IC 17/role-play: renting an apt.

Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 2 of ICW

Study for the weekly test

W 9 (3/26)

1

Review and weekly test

study IC 18

2, 3

IC 18: sports

 

Listening, Reading and writing exercises of ICW

4

Review of IC 18

Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 2 of ICW

Study for the weekly test

W 10 (4/2)

1

review and weekly test

study IC 19

2, 3

IC 19: Travel

Listening, Reading and writing exercises of ICW

4

review

Listen to the text until you can understand the dialogues well.

Study for the weekly test

W 11 (4/9)

1

review and weekly test

Study IC 20

2, 3

IC20: Learn to function at an airport

Listening, Reading and writing exercises of ICW

4

review

Listen to the text until you can understand the dialogues well.

W 12 (4/16)

a new lesson to be distributed

 
W 13 (4/22) General Revview General Revview/Speaking/listening, reading and writing
W 14 (4/30) Final Speaking Evaluation. Each pair will have 15 min. with Bai Laoshi. One role play is choosen randomly from the list of Speaking Review sheets and then there will be a natural conversation in Chinese followed by a few Qs from Bai laoshi. General Revview/listening, reading and writing
5/8 Final Exam: Listening, Reading and Writing (8:30-10:30) Have a happy summer vacation!

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Disability Access Statement
If you have a hidden or visible disability which may require classroom or test accommodations please see me as soon as possible during a scheduled office hour. If you have not already done so, you must register with the Coordinator of Disability Services (Erin Salva, salvae@kenyon.edu, x5145), who is the individual responsible for coordinating accommodations and
services for students with disabilities. All information and documentation of disability is strictly confidential. No accommodations will be granted in this course without notification from the Office of Disability Services.