Chinese 102
CHNS 102: Elementary Chinese II
Prerequisites: 2.75 GPA and CHNS 101 at Radford University with a grade of C or better
Credit Hours: (4)
A continuation of Elementary Chinese I with a balanced emphasis 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
Situations and intentions covered include: commands, titles and addressing others, names of relatives; introduction and description of oneself 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, realizing cultural and communication differences, comparing cultural values, appreciating and adapting to Chinese culture.
Grammatical structures include: Common verbs and adjectives in the present time frame, “shi(4), you(3), and zai(4)”; sentences with a verbal predicate; sentences with an adjectival predicate; affirmative-negative questions; object of the preposition “cong(2)”; ways of telling the time, and expressing year, month, and date.
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 depending on the level of students’ Chinese language comprehension.
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 satisfy partially the requirements of basic communicative exchanges by relying heavily on learned utterances. They can make short statements, and ask simple questions involving learned material. Students will produce oral speech using limited words and learned phrases with predictable areas of need. Speech continues to consist of learned utterances rather than of personalized, situationally adapted ones. Students will acquire emerging ability to make short statements utilizing simple formulaic utterances and ask simple questions. Pronunciation and tones are still be strongly influenced by the first language. Errors are frequent in spite of repetition. As regards listening skills, students will be able to recognize learned material and isolated words and phrases when strongly supported by context and slower speaking pace. Students will be able to comprehend some words and phrases from simple questions, statements, high‑frequency commands, and courtesy formulae about topics that refer to basic personal information or the immediate physical setting.
Reading and writing goals (standardized ACTFL proficiency criteria): Even strongly supported by cognates, context, or dictionary assistance, students will still need some assistance from the instructor or native speaker to identify learned material and to understand some new material. In writing, students will be able to produce more words and phrases from learned material and will be able to produce correctly common verbs and adjectives in the present time frame most of the time.
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 102 is for students who have taken Chinese 101 at Radford University.
Approval and Subsequent Reviews
Date Action Reviewed by
February 2004 Revised Philip Sweet