CHIN 012: Beginning Chinese II

Spring Semester 2008

Course website: www.sas.upenn.edu/~maiheng

Instructors

Dr. Maiheng Shen Dietrich--Coordinator (001 12-1 M-R WIL 304; 004 11-12 M-R WIL 304)

Office: 701 Williams; (215) 573-4472

E-mail: maiheng@sas.upenn.edu

Office hours: MW 1-2pm & by appointment

Shu-Ting Lai (005 12-1 M-R WILL 305; 002 MW 1-2 / TR 1:30-2:30 WILL 305)

Office: 701 Williams; (215) 573-4472

E-mail: shuting2@sas.upenn.edu

Office hours: TR 11am-12pm & by appointment

Chih-Jen Lee (003 12-1 MW WILL28 / TR WILL 741)

Office: 703 Williams; (215) 573-4240

E-mail: chihjen@sas.upenn.edu

Office hours: MW 1-2pm & by appointment

Lei Yang (008 MW 10-11 WILL 705 / TR 9:30-10:30 WILL 307)

Office: 632 Williams; (215) 746-0624

E-mail: leiyang@sas.upenn.edu

Office hours: MW 1-2pm & by appointment

Yunong Zhou (006 M-R 2-3 WILL 304; 009 M-R 3-4 WILL 304)

Office: 632 Williams; (215) 746-0624

E-mail: yzhou@sas.upenn.edu

Office hours: TR 1-2 & by appointment

Required Texts (simplified character version)

(Available at Penn Bookstor, 36^th and Walnut)

Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part I: Textbook Yao & Liu et al., 2^nd edition, Cheng & Tsui Company, Boston 2005

Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part II: Textbook

Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1: Workbook

Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part I1: Workbook

Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1: Character Workbook

Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1I: Character Workbook

Audio recording/language tapes

Audio recording for the Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1 and Level 1 Part II and their corresponding workbooks is accessible at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/chinese in real audio format, user name: Xuesheng; password: upenn. (User name and password are case sensitive.)

Course Description and Requirement

This course is the second of a four-semester sequence of Beginning Chinese, which is comprised of CHIN 011 (Begining Chinese I), CHIN 012 (Beginning Chinese II), CHIN 111 (Beginning Chinese III) and CHIN 112 (Beginning Chinese IV). By completing all four semesters, you fulfill the college language requirement.

This course is designed for students who have completed one-semester of college level Mandarin class or equivalent. The objective of the course is to help students continue building a solid foundation of the four basic skills--listening, speaking, reading, and writing in an interactive and communicative learning environment. The emphasis is on correct pronunciation, accurate tones and mastery of basic grammatical structures. By the end of the second semester, students will be able to manage many situations that have immediate concern to them, such as relating one's personal life and experiences, expressing preferences and feelings, ordering meals, purchasing goods and asking for directions. In order to achieve these goals, students are expected to thoroughly preview and review the materials according to the weekly lesson plan (on course website) prior to attending class. Regular attendance is mandatory and strictly monitored. Students will be deducted 1% point from their final grade for each unexplained and undocumented absence beyond the first three.

Oral Presentations and Tutorials

In order to develop students’ listening and speaking ability, an oral presentation is conducted every other week. Students will be paird up to perform a communication task. The task will be distributed in advance and students are expected to come to class prepared. The purpose of the oral task is two-fold: 1) to assist students fully utilize learned vocabulary and grammatical structures, and 2) to gradually increase students’ fluency in spoken Chinese. These oral presentations are graded according to the following criteria: pronunciation, grammar, fluency, and coherence.

A 10-minute mandatory oral tutorial session will be conducted every Thursday or Friday. These sessions are graded. Students receive full credit based on effort and performance (Full credit=10 points; missed appointment -2; sub-standard/insufficient effort up to -5). The purpose of the tutorial is to provide students some one-on-one interaction time with an instructor/TA to reinforce and review the content covered in class. These sessions are largely conversational. This semester due to the increased difficulty of grammar, we’ll shift more of the conversation tasks to tutorial sessions. Each student may reschedule up to three (3) sessions per semester for any reason. However, rescheduling is not guaranteed. It is the student’s responsibility to contact the TA for rescheduling.

Written Tests and Quizzes

A one-hour written test is given every two units, which will be on alternating weeks with the oral presentations. Format of the tests varies. A character quiz and a grammar quiz will also be given on each unit.

Homework

Homework assignments (character writing, translation etc.) are posted on the course website under weekly lesson plan. Homework must be turned in on its due date to be graded. Late, incomplete and sub-standard work will not receive full credit (full credit=10 points; late -2.5; incomplete -2.5; substandard up to -5).

New components in this semester’s curriculum

1) Vocabulary spot check on day one of a new lesson. This is to ensure that you do preview vocabulary thoroughly before coming to class. The lessons are getting longer and harder, we’ll have to ask you to devote a little more time to study Chinese.

2) Dialogue “memorization.” Each lesson will have one designated dialogue (or a portion of) on which we focus. You should know the dialogue well enough that you can recall and recite the sentences fluently when seeing the English equivalent. This is meant to help you learn the grammatical structures.

3) In-class Writing. Starting from week two there will be a word-processing in-class writing assignment once every three weeks. The assignments call for the exercise of multiple language skills—listening comprehension, sentence and paragraph construction and character recognition. The primary goal of the writing is to learn how to “tell stories” in Chinese. We’ll start with simple "note" writing, and gradually grow into paragraph-length narratives. The topics are by and large tied into our lessons. Format will change according to the length and topic of the writing. A secondary goal of this exericise is to introduce students to Chinese word processing, an effective tool for character production.

Grading

Oral presentations 15%

Written tests 20%

Character quizzes (may drop 1) 10%

Grammar quizzes (may drop 1) 10%

In-class Writing 5%

* Final Written 10%

Oral tutorial 10%

Homework 10%

Class attendance & participation 10%

CHIN 012 Course Schedule

Spring 2008

The course schedule only indicates a general pace of the class, and is subject to change.

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
1/13	14	15	16 Review	17 L9	18	19
20	21 King Day No Class	22	23	24 GQ1	25	26
27	28 CQ1 In-class W	29 Oral 1	30 L10	31	2/1	2
3	4	5 GQ2	6 CQ2	7 Written 1	8	9
10	11 L11	12	13	14 GQ3	15	16
17	18 CQ3 In-class W	19 Oral 2	20 L12	21	22	23
24	25	26 GQ4	27 CQ4	28 Written 2	29	3/1
2	3 L13	4	5	6 GQ5	7	8
9	10	11 Spring	12 Break	13	14	15
16	17 CQ5 In-class W	18 Oral 3	19 L14	20	21	22
23	24	25 GQ6	26 CQ6	27 Written 3	28	29
30	31 L15	4/1	2	3 GQ7	4	5
6	7 CQ7 In-class W	8 Oral 4	9 L16	10	11	12
13	14	15 GQ8	16 CQ8	17 Written 4	18	19
20	21 L17	22	23	24 GQ9	25	26
27	28 CQ9 In-class W	29 Review	30	5/1	2	3

* Final Exam: May 5, Monday, 12-2PM