CHIN 012

CHIN 012: Beginning Chinese II

Spring Semester 2012

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

Instructors

Dr. Maiheng Shen Dietrich--Coordinator (003 M-R 12-1 WILL 303; 004 M-R 11-12 WILL 303)

Office: 701 Williams; (215) 573-4472

E-mail: maiheng@sas.upenn.edu

Office hours: MW 1-2 or by appointment

Dr. Liu Li (001 M-R 12-1WILL 723; 006 M-R 2-3 WILL 203)

Office: 632 Williams; (215) 746-0624

E-mail: liliu8@sas.upenn.edu

Office hours: MW 1-2 or by appointment

Ni Ou (005 M-R 12-1 BENN 139)

Office: 632 Williams; (215) 746-0624

E-mail: ouni@sas.upenn.edu

Office hours: TR 1:30-2:30 or by appointment

Li-jen Shih (002 MW 1-2 WILL 305/TR 1:30-2:30 WILL 201; 007 M-R 3-4 WILL 304)

Office: 632 Williams; (215) 746-0624

E-mail: shihl@sas.upenn.edu

Office hours: MW 4-5 or by appointment

Yunong Zhou (008 11-12 MW BENN 25/TR GLAB 103)

Office: 701Williams; (215) 573-4472

E-mail: yzhou@sas.upenn.edu

Office hours: TR 3-4 or by appointment

Required Texts (simplified character version)

(Available at Penn Bookstore, 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 those 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 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. Tardiness of 20 minutes or more is counted as an absence.

Oral Presentations and Individual Tutorials

Oral presentation In order to develop the listening and speaking skills, you will be paired up and perform a communication based oral presentation every other week. The assignment will be distributed in advance and you are expected to come to class fully prepared. The purpose of the oral presentation is two-fold: 1) to assist you utilize learned vocabulary and grammatical structures, and 2) to build up your proficiency in communicating in Chinese. These oral presentations are graded according to the following criteria: pronunciation, tones, grammar, and coherence.

Individual tutorial A 10-minute mandatory individual tutorial session with a TA will be conducted each Thursday or Friday. You will sign up for a time slot in the second week and keep the same slot for the entire semester. The purpose of the tutorial is to provide some one-on-one interaction time with an instructor/TA to reinforce and review the content covered in class. These sessions are largely conversational. The grading is based on effort and performance (full credit=10 points; missed appointment -2; sub-standard/insufficient effort up to -5). You can re-schedule up to two (2) sessions per semester without penalty if you request prior to missing the session. The make-up session must be scheduled within two weeks of the original date. Please contact your TA directly for rescheduling. TA’s contact information is available on the course website. It is your responsibility to contact the TA.

Group cultural presentations These are mini-research projects conducted in English. Each group will draw one topic, research it and do a 10-15 minute PPT presentation in class. The topics are related to selected lessons (see weekly lesson plans for specifics). The purpose of these projects is to increase your general knowledge of contemporary China. You will receive a group grade, which weighs the same as an oral presentation. Each group only presents once during the semester.

Written Tests and Quizzes

A one-hour written test is given every other week on the current lessons, which will be on alternating weeks with the oral presentations. Format on the tests varies. A short character quiz (supplementary vocabulary excluded) and a grammar quiz are given on each lesson. You should trace characters according to the conventional stroke order. The following page provides excellent illustrations http://www.usc.edu/dept/ealc/chinese/character/

Homework

Homework assignments (character writing, translation etc.) are posted in weekly lesson plans. Homework is collected twice a week to be graded (see weekly plan for due dates). Late, incomplete and sub-standard work will not receive full credit (full credit=10 points). You will lose one (1) point for each day the work is late, and will not receive any credit after one week. Incomplete and sloppy work will lose up to 5 points.

New components in the 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. Although not graded separately, consistent poor performance will affect your overall participation grade. The lessons are getting longer and harder, you’ll need to devote a little more time on Chinese.

2) Dialogue “memorization.” Each lesson will have one designated dialogue (or a portion of it) on which we focus. You should know the dialogue well enough that you can recall and recite the sentences fluently when reading the English translation. This is meant to help you learn the grammatical structures. Again, even though not graded separately, consistent poor performance will affect your overall participation grade.

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 utilization 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 vary depending on the length and topic of the writing. A secondary goal of this exericise is to introduce you to Chinese word processing, an effective tool for character production.

Assessment

Oral presentations (incl. cul. presentation) 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%

Course Schedule

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

1/8

Review

King Day

No Class

GQ1

CQ1

In-class W

Oral 1

L10

GQ2

2/1

CQ2

GCP1

Written 1

L11

GQ3

GCP2

CQ3

In-class W

Oral 2

L12

GQ4

CQ4

GCP3

Written 2

L13

3/1

GQ5

Spring

Break

CQ5

In-class W

Oral 3

L14

CQ6

GQ6

Written 3

L15

CQ7

GQ7

GCP4

4/1

Oral 4

L16

CQ8

GQ8

GCP5

Written 4

L17

CQ9

GQ9

In-class W

Review

Final Exam

9-11 am

5/1