Course Syllabus

Chinese 1 Syllabus

This is an introductory course for all grade levels. Students begin to develop the ability to communicate using interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational skills. Chinese language proficiency is obtained through the student-centered approach. In addition to the textbook, more authentic materials, such as online videos, storybooks, and other textbooks, are used. Technology is incorporated into class as much as possible. The culture focuses on social life and relationships, festivals and holidays, geographical features and regions, color taboos, and family, as well as school life. Students can also experience Chinese culture in Chinese Club, Chinese Day field trips, and community fair at the Chinese Chapel.

Unit1 “Introduction to Chinese Characters and Pinyin”

It focuses on Chinese phonetics, aimed at helping students to establish good articulatory habits, and the communicative tasks in this unit focus on basic speaking functions. In the latter part of this unit the concept of Chinese characters is introduced. Chinese geography will be introduced and discussed.

Students will recognize Chinese administrative regions, topography and products etc. by using the map of China. They will pronounce different pinyin by combining initials, finals and tones and write down Chinese characters in stroke order.

Unit 2 “ Greetings and Introductions”
Students will be able to read, write some relative characters in Chinese; exchange basic greetings; request a person's name and provide their own; determine whether somebody is a teacher or a student; ask and tell somebody's nationality; tell some main cities and countries; know some knowledge of Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival.

Student will use related vocabulary to greet each other both in formal and informal ways. They will talk about person's name, their own name and somebody's nationality. They will introduce some main cities and countries.

Students will understand common and different ways of greeting among different countries. They will know similarities and differences about people's name between China and the US and have an introduction about it among other countries.

Students will learn vocabulary needed for greeting, name, nationality, etc. They will learn how to greet each other. They will ask and answer questions about name and nationality. Also Chinese culture will be discussed.

Unit 3 “ Dates and Time”

Students will be able to read, write some relative characters in Chinese; could tell different time of a day/week/year;could ask and answer questions about different people's birthday; could ask and answer some questions about daily schedule and week plans. Holidays and some important days will also be discussed.

Students will use appropriate vocabulary to describe their daily schedule and week plans(getting up,classes, have lunch/dinner, going to sleep, watching TV, listening to music, going to cinema). And students will discuss holidays and other important days.

Students will understand that similarities and differences exist among cultures, certainly in daily life and holidays.

Students will use vocabulary to tell the date and time. Students will describe their daily schedule using activities, classes, times and dates. They will be able to explain how practices and perspectives of the target culture vary from those of the students' own culture. Students will compare and contrast it with that of a typical Chinese schedule, analyzing both the pros and cons of both life styles.