Major Concepts/Content : Introduces Mandarin Chinese language and culture to middle school students. Aims to teach communication in both spoken and written Chinese at a basic level.

Major Instructional Activities: The classroom activities will be interactive, using visual aids and stimulating motivators for language learning. Characters introduced through the text will enhance students’ reading ability. Pinyin acts as a guide to pronunciation. Awareness of traditional characters is made available. Conversations and illustrations are based on daily life and are presented through illustrated conversations, new words and expressions, writing the characters, using supplemental words, and adding “something new to know” with each lesson. Student workbooks and CDRoms/Audio technology will enhance and extend the learning.

Major Evaluative Techniques : Formative and summative assessments will be used that test for listening comprehension, some speaking ability, some writing, and some reading. It is understood that the shortness of this course will necessarily mean a limited amount of productive skills in the student. Therefore the greater emphasis will be on the receptive and recognition skills of students as they learn the language and cultural.

Essential Objectives: Upon completion of the course, students should be able to:

• Recognize and use simple Chinese in the classroom, around school, and in the community.
• Recognize some signs in Chinese.
• Understand and, to a limited extent, converse about family, pets, friends, favorite sports, and favorite foods.

Last Revised: August 17, 2006