CHNS 202: Intermediate Chinese II
Prerequisites: CHNS 101, 102 and 201 with a grade of C or better, and approval by the Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Credit Hours: (4)
A continuation of Intermediate Chinese I with a balanced emphasis is on listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This course has been approved for credit in the Foreign Languages Area of the Core Curriculum.
Detailed Description of Course
The course material is adopting a cyclical arrangement with constant review of language structure and function together with important cultural information. This course will further consolidate, expand and deepen students’ understanding of lexical items and sentence patterns like the previous three semesters. It aims to develop the students’ communicative ability in Chinese by learning language structures, functions and related cultural knowledge as well as by training their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. Situations and intentions covered include: commands, names of relatives; introduction and description of one-self and friends; the classroom, the school, the family, the restaurant and shopping; negotiation; expressing one’s desire; asking directions; placing orders, and telling time.
Cultural sections focus on: Students studying abroad in China – building international relationships, bonds between teachers and students, realizing cultural and communication differences; comparing cultural values, appreciating and adapting to Chinese culture.
Grammatical structures include: word order, basic constructions, use of high-frequency verbs, auxiliaries, simple time words, and other time markers to indicate various time relations. Students will have a basic knowledge of differences among such sets of terms as: “hui(4), ke(3)yi(3), neng(2); jiao(4), qing(3), wen(4); zhi(1)dao(4), ren(4)shi(5),” but still makes errors.
Detailed Description of Conduct of Course
Class instruction targets communication practice utilizing the situations, intentions, vocabulary, culture, and grammar introduced in a given chapter. Other activities include: singing songs, playing skits and Chinese games; grammar and vocabulary explanations, pronunciation practice, listening comprehension exercises, translation, writing, and grammatical drills. Class is conducted more in Chinese than in English as the level of students’ Chinese language comprehension increases.
Student Goals and Objectives of the Course
Speaking and listening goals (standardized ACTFL proficiency criteria): Having successfully completed this course, students will be able to handle successfully a limited but increasing number of uncomplicated, basic and communicative tasks and social situation. Students can ask and answer simple questions, initiate and respond to basic statements, and maintain simple face-to-face conversations in a restricted manner. Quantity of speech is increased and quality of speech is improved. The listening goal is: students will be able to understand simple sentence-length utterances which consist of recombinations of learned elements in a limit number of content areas, particularly strongly supported by the situational context.
Reading and writing goals (standardized ACTFL proficiency criteria): Students will have a better ability to interpret and understand written language when supported by familiar context or dictionary assistance. In writing, students will be able to write simple fixed expressions, limited memorized material and recombinations thereof.
Students will achieve a degree of competence in a foreign language and culture.
Students will be able to:
a. demonstrate language skills appropriate to the level of study
b. analyze similarities and differences between their own and the target cultures
c. explain contemporary international issues from the perspectives of their own and the target cultures
Assessment Measures
Speaking progress is evaluated in class and in oral interviews. Written homework assignments provide a basis for the evaluation of writing progress. Listening and reading comprehension and grammatical accuracy are tested in quizzes, chapter tests, and on the final exam. In most of these testing situations, students will also either demonstrate or further expand (in the case of new linguistic excerpts containing new cultural topics) their familiarity with cultural topics and current global issues. Students’ success in using Chinese will therefore demonstrate not only their linguistic abilities but also their cultural competence to anticipate, identify, and to simulate the use of different cultural perceptions and behaviors through the new language.
Other Course Information
Examples: Bibliography of readings relevant to the course, special teaching aids, and any other information not contained in one of the above sections.
To supplement linguistic and cultural encounters in class, students are expected to participate in some extracurricular activities such as the celebration of Chinese New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival, and conversation with native speakers, watching Chinese language movies, and inquiring about Chinese cultures by means of the multitude of media available as informational resources. Chinese 202 is for students who have taken Chinese 101, 102 and 201 at the university level.
Approval and Subsequent Reviews
Date Action Reviewed by
February 2004 Revised Philip Sweet