Chinese I

Elementary Chinese I aims to help beginners develop communicative competence in the basic four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) and culture of Chinese. The course curriculum is organized around the 5 Cs principles of the National Standards for Foreign Language Education for the 21st Century – Communication, Cultures, Comparisons, Connections and Communities. Elementary Chinese I covers 8 units. We recommend that students go through the units in order to take advantage of the systematic scope and sequence of the learning materials. However, the curriculum is also flexible for individuals and institutions to adopt and modify to meet their different needs, schedule and emphasis. The current course is available for low-cost use by instructor-led classes of enrolled students.

Note: the Open & Free Chinese I course includes just one sample lesson, Unit 2: Greetings.

Additional Course Details
Topics Covered:

Foundation: pinyin and basic expressions
Greetings
Names
Nationalities and languages
Talking about studies
Talking about yourself and your family
Making phone calls
Daily schedules
Estimated Time to Complete Course:
This is a semester-long course, designed to take approximately 15 weeks.

Additional Software or Materials Required:
Audio recording software.

Maintenance Fee (per student):
$25 per student

In-Depth Description
Elementary Chinese 1 is part of a two-sequence. The units in both courses have a consistent structure, containing the following main content and activities:

Main Content:
– Objectives
– Main video (+questions)
– Video preview exercises
– Text of the video
– Text translation and pinyin with slower audio (students are strongly encouraged to listen and repeat after the sound files)
– Text notes
– Vocabulary tables
– Video comprehension exercises

II. Listening:
– Pinyin recognition exercise
– True and false exercise
– Translation exercise
– Question answering exercise

III. Grammar:
– Grammar notes
– Sentence jumble exercise
– Dialogue jumble exercise

IV. Reading Exercises:
– Reading comprehension

V. Consolidation Exercises:
– Picture description exercise

VI. Culture Link :
– Culture notes
– Culture info

VII Characters:
– Characters in the character book (both traditional and simplified versions)