Chinese 141/540a: Intermediate Modern Chinese

Chinese 130 Syllabus: Fall 2009

Students are expected to sign in with the course online as soon as possible at

Chns130 course site is:

http://classes.yale.edu/chns130

First Day Job: Do a Questionnaire at: http://www.quia.com/sv/323561.html

General Information on Course

Chinese 130 is a continuation of Chinese 115 for true beginners at the intermediate level. Enrollment is screened to exclude those students who have already acquired oral fluency through ways other than from the elementary college course. Those students are advised to take Chinese 133.

Chinese 130 meets for 5 days a week, 50 minutes per session. Students are expected to spend 1-1.5 hours every day, besides the class time, preparing for class, reviewing for tests, and doing homework. Class enrollment is limited to maximum 14 students. Instructional language is exclusively Chinese, except those situations where students are doing bilingual translation or where a grammatical point needs to be explained in English. Students are expected to speak in Chinese during class time. In class activities include drills, quizzes, organized oral exercises such as making dialogs, presenting a narrative, or performing a skit, and short grammar lectures.

Objectives

Chinese 130 helps students reinforce what they have acquired in the elementary course and continue to expand their skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, by studying a variety of texts covering different aspects of daily life, simple academic subjects, cultural settings, and limited written expressions. Finishing the course, students are to be able to communicate more comfortably and confidently with native speakers of Chinese on simple daily and academic subjects and to have acquired a solid reading and writing knowledge to get ready for studying semi-authentic and authentic Chinese texts at advanced levels.

Textbooks:

1. David and Helen in China (I) (Phyllis Zhang) (Available at Yale Bookstore, 776-3431)

2. Listening and Speaking Chinese (Available on the web only)

3. Written Assignments Downloadable from course website

http://classes.yale.edu/chns130/downlable/downloadable.html

Teaching Staff: Ling Mu Office: Room. 100, 434 Temple St; Phone 2-2942

Office Hours: Tuesday: 1:30-3:00 or by appointment; Phone: 2-2942; Home: 234-2908

Min Chen, Thursday: Office: Rm 102, 96 Grove St, Phone+ 436-8127; m.chen@yale.edu

Class Hours & Rooms:

Section 1: 9:30-10:20 (Room 004 , 212 York St)

Section 2: 9:30-10:20 (Room 004a , 212 York St)

Section 3: 10:30-11:20 (Room 004, 212 York St)

Section 4: 10:30-11:20 (Room 004a , 212 York St)

Section 6: 11:30-12:20 (Room 004, 212 York St)

Section 7: 11:30-12:20 (Room 004a , 212 York St)

Class Schedules: To be announced in class and on course web site http://classes.yale.edu/chns130

Textbooks and Activities:

1. What we do with David and Helen in China. We will spend roughly 4 hours on a lesson.

· Pre-class quiz: Students are expected to prepare for new words with the vocab. List, listen to the text, and read the text. The Quiz will be multiple choice questions over the vocabulary and the content of the text.

· Do a listening and Reading comprehension exercise out of class with each lesson

· Grammar and structures and drills on words and patterns

· Oral practice with a TA every week, answer questions of a new lesson and speaking practice

· Do one dictation after finishing a lesson, words from the vocab. list in each lesson.

· Written Assignment: There will be a written assignment for each lesson, alternatively in the format of making sentences and composition writing.

2. Listening and Speaking Chinese, with multimedia tools: (Roughly 2 hours/lesson)

This is a textbook developed as supplementary materials for listening and speaking skills, with topics on Chinese culture and society. The hard copy of the textbook does not include scripts of the texts. The on-line version of the texts will not be provided until students have handed in a pre-class exercise. But the recording of the vocabulary is always available online. We will use the textbook according to the following steps:

· Students will use a vocabulary list and audio files online to finish a pre-class listening comprehension exercise (Marked as Exercise B)

· Online texts (not provided in the hard copy of the book) will then be provided. Students can then use the texts to prepare for oral tests.

· There will be an oral test every 3 lessons, based on the content of those lessons

The on-line texts are available through any PC computers, either in the dorm or at designated computer clusters on campus, no Chinese software being required. The online textbook will feature a recording of the vocabulary, pop-up illustrations of all the words in the vocabulary list, recording of a text, and various cultural links for assignments.

Audio: All audio files for David and Helen in China are on line. Please access them via course web site.

Attendance requirement:

· Attendance: This is to be a highly intensive course. Good attendance is expected from all students. However, a student is allowed to use up to 3 hours of un-excused absence in the semester (but you still need to find a way to hand in all the assigned work when due). Excessive absence (7 accumulated hours, including the allowed 3) will lead to an automatic drop from the course, by Yale College and the Department policy. (This will be strictly enforced). We do allow additional absence without penalty for special situations (such as being seriously ill). You should email your instructor BEFORE an excused absence.

· You cannot earn an

“A” range grade if missing unexcused more than 3 classes (Including the 3 times allowed)

“B” range grade if missing unexcused more than 5 classes (Including the 3 times allowed)

No grade and no credit if missing more than 7 times.

Weekly Individual Tutorial Sessions a TA (Location: Temple St. CLS basement Study):

Required weekly meeting with TAs, 25-30 minutes, on assignments provided. For examples, students will pronunciation practice, textual question, answer questions related to a theme or topic, pronunciation exercises, or free conversation.

Homework, Assignments, Quizzes, Tests, and Examinations:

Students are required to hand in homework and take all dictation quizzes, tests, and exams as scheduled. Unless having a dean's excuse, all other make-ups will be lowed 3 points if taken within two days or 10 points within a week. No make-ups are allowed beyond a week. A make-up should be done as soon as the student is available for class. Assignment and exercises required due before class will not be accepted after class.. For the semester, there will be the following assignments and tests:

· For D&H