CHNS 112: Intensive Introductory Modern Chinese

 

Home Course Description Weekly Calendar Academic Integrity
About Classmates Assessment/Grading Chinese Table Disability Access

Instructor: Jianhua Bai (427-5530)
Office: 112 Ascension Hall    Office Hours: M.W. 11:00-12:00, M.W. 2:00-4:00, or by appointment
Class Schedule: 9:10-10:00 (M. W.) 9:40 – 10:45 (T. Th.), ASC 126
AT Practice Sessions

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
 https://kenyon.libguides.com/er.php?course_id=47538

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.

Back to the Top

Course Description
This is the second part of the 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.

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 once. It is a good idea to work in pairs or small groups.

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 homework assignment. Each week you will need to complete the workbook exercises and turn them in no later than Monday in class. Homework turned in late will be corrected, but not credited.  

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.

Course Grade
The final letter grade assigned represents the judgment of the following aspects:

95-100: A, 90-94.9: A-, 86.7-89.9: B+, 83.4-86.6: B, 80-83.3: B-, 76.7-79.9: C+, 73.4-76.6: C, 
70-73.3: C-, 66.7-69.9: D+, 63.4-66.6: D, 60-63.3: D-, 0-59.9: F

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 Wednesday from 5:30 to 6:30 at Peirce Hall (Downstairs).

Back to the Top

Weekly Calendar

During-class Activities

Post-class Assignments

W1

1(1/14)

Intro to the course, review and start IC 11: weather

Study IC 11: Study and learn the new words of the first half of IC 11.
Listen to the dialogue.
2 Talking about weather 1) Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part One of ICW. 2) Study the second part of the lesson and come to class with questions if you have any.
3 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(1/21)

 Review and weekly test (Writing) Study and learn the new words of the first half of IC 12.
Listen to the dialogue

2

The first part of IC 12: Dining

1) Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part One of ICW. 2) Study the second part of the lesson and come to class with questions if you have any.

3

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

Study for the weekly test

W3

1(1/28)

Review of IC 12 and a weekly test (speaking)

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

2

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.

  Classes on 1/30 and 1/31 canceled due to cold weather  

2/1

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.
2/4 IC 13: describing locations and asking/telling directions  
2/5 IC 13: describing locations and asking/telling directions  
2/6 Complete IC 13 and share what you plan to do for the cultural project.  

W5

1 (2/11)

Reveiw of IC 13 and a weekly test (writing)

 

Study IC 14: Study and learn the new words and listen to both dialogues of IC14.

2

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

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.

1) Practice characters, sentence patterns and the dialogue. Do the Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 2 of ICW. 2) Listen to the text until you can understand the dialogues well.

4

Complete IC 14

Study for the weekly test

W 6

1(2/18)

First half of IC 15: "Seeing a doctor"

Study/preview IC 15

2

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

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

Finish IC15

 Study for the mid-term exam

W7

(2/25)

Mid-term review

Speaking exam on Tuesday

Written Exam on Thur.

 Spring break: March 2 to March 17

W8

1(3/18)

Review and weekly test (speaking)

Study/preview IC 16

2 start IC 16: "Dating" Practice characters, sentence patterns and the dialogue. Do the Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 1 of ICW.

3

IC 16: "Dating"16

Practice characters, sentence patterns and the dialogue. Do the Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 2 of ICW.
4

Recycle and practice the grammar and vocabulary

Practicing reading and writing of the characters of IC 16.

 
5

Complete IC 16

  

Back to the Top

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.

Back to the Top

Date

Class Activities

Assignments

W 9

1 (3/25)

Review and a speaking quiz

 Study IC 17: Study and learn the new words and listen to both dialogues

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 10

1 (4/1)

Review and weekly test (written)

study IC 18

2, 3

 IC 18: sports

 

Listening, Reading and writing exercises of ICW

4

No class (to be made up next Friday)

Listening, Reading and writing exercises of Part 2 of ICW

 

W 11 (4/8)

1

review (no test) and talk about the cultural project

study IC 19

2, 3

IC 19: Travel

Listening, Reading and writing exercises of ICW

4, 5

Complete IC 19: Travel

Meet Friday to make up the class missed last week.

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

Study for the weekly test

W 12 (4/15)

1

Review and weekly test (speaking)

Study IC 20

2, 3, 4

IC20: Learn to function at an airport

Listening, Reading and writing exercises of ICW

W 13 (4/22)

Review and weekly test (written)

An added lesson about 家乡(hometown)

Presenting your cultural project and start general review

  
W 14 (4/29)

Speaking Assessement (role-play) Tues.

General Revview, cultural projects presentation

 General Revview/listening, reading and writing
5/7 Final Exam: Listening, Reading and Writing (8:30-10:30) Have a happy summer vacation!

Back to the Top


Disability Access Statement
Students with disabilities who will be taking this course and may need academic accommodations are encouraged to make an appointment to see me as soon as possible.  Also, you are required to register for support services with the Office of Disability Services in the Olin Library, Center for Innovative Pedagogy. Please contact Erin Salva at 5453 or emailsalvae@kenyon.edu. Students are required to register for support services with Erin Salva.
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.

Statement of Academic Integrity
At Kenyon we expect all students, at all times, to submit work that represents the highest standards of academic integrity.  It is the responsibility of each student to learn and practice the proper ways of documenting and acknowledging those whose ideas and words they have drawn upon (see Academic Honesty and Questions of Plagiarism in the Course Catalog).  Ignorance and carelessness are not excuses for academic dishonesty.  If you are uncertain about the expectations for this class, please ask for clarification.