CHIN 011

CHIN 011: Beginning Chinese I

Summer I 2011

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

Instructor

Dr. Maiheng Shen Dietrich

701 Williams Hall

Office: (215) 573-4472

E-mail: maiheng@sas.upenn.edu

Office hours: By appointment

Required Texts (simplified character edition. May order online)

Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1, Yao & Liu et al., 2^nd edition, Cheng & Tsui Co, 2005

Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1: Workbook

Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1: Character Workbook

Audio Site

Audio recording of Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1 (textbook & workbook) 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.) Listening to the audio recording is required for this class.

Course Description and Requirement

This class is the first 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 primarily for students who have little or no prior exposure to Chinese. The objective of the course is to help students build 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 simple opinions, 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). 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

In order to develop students’ listening and speaking ability, there will be a weekly oral presentation. During the presentation, students are expected to complete an oral communication task. The oral task topic and requirement will be distributed in class in advance. 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’ ability to communicate in Chinese. The oral presentations are graded according to the following criteria: pronunciation, tones, grammar, and coherence.

Written Tests and Quizzes

For each lesson there will be a written test, a short character quiz (excluding supplementary vocabulary) and a grammar quiz. (See weekly lesson plans for detail.)

Homework

Daily homework assignments (character writing, translation, reading etc.) are posted in the weekly lesson plan on the course website. They must be completed on time to be graded.

A stroke by stroke drawing of each character can be found at http://www.usc.edu/dept/ealc/chinese/newweb/character_page.html

Grading

Oral presentations (5) 25%

Written tests (5) 25%

Character quizzes (5) 10%

Grammar quizzes (7) 15%

Homework 15%

Class attendance & participation 10%

CHIN 011 Course Schedule

SSI 2011

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

5/22

Introduction

GQ 1

Lesson 1

GQ 2

Memorial Day Holiday

Lesson 2

6/1

GQ 3

CQ 1

Oral 1

Written 1

Lesson 3

GQ 4

CQ 2

Oral 2

Written 2

Lesson 4

GQ 5

CQ 3

Oral 3

Written 3

Lesson 5

GQ 6

CQ 4

Oral 4

Written 4

Lesson 6

GQ 7

CQ 5

Oral 5

Written 5

7/1