Major Concepts/Content: The Mandarin Chinese I course is designed to teach students the basic everyday survival skills needed to communicate in Chinese and will follow the 5 C’s of national and DoDEA Standards: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities. This course will lay the groundwork for building Chinese language and culture skills starting at the beginning (Novice) level. The full scope of language skills will be taught: listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. Grammar will form a structural basis for accurate communication. Students will learn to pronounce and discriminate among the various tones of the language and respond to and to imitate authentic patterns of intonation, rhythm, and pronunciation. Students learn to give simple oral and written information by using appropriate learned vocabulary, word order, and grammatical forms, and to read silently and aloud with comprehension. The major oral and written linguistic principles are presented through multiple resources, including multimedia, realia, simple stories, magazines, newspapers, and computer programs that are representative of the culture.

Major Instructional Activities: Instructional activities will be interactive and emphasize proficiency development in communication and culture in addition to work in the four basic skill areas. Multimedia will provide unique access to video, audio, images, and interactive exercises, adding flexibility and richness to the language learning experience. Students will listen to authentic models of the new sounds and mimic them. Interpersonal communication will be encouraged by asking simple questions and having students answer in the target language. Use of computers may provide drill and reinforcement exercises, multiple choice, close encounters and other activity types. Choral exercises and other oral repetitive drills will be interspersed for reinforcement of difficult sounds and structures of the language. Students will participate in class activities to achieve the goals and objectives of the course. In addition, students may be encouraged to visit museums, theaters, and attend other activities where they can hear and speak Chinese and appreciate many cultural aspects of the new language. 

Major Evaluative Techniques: Students will be required to pass tests included with the program text as well as teacher-made tests. Daily class participation, exercises in workbooks, and homework will be considered of vital importance in the total evaluation of students. 

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

Listening Comprehension:

• Discriminate among various tones of the language.
• Respond to intonation, stress, rhythm, and pitch.
• Demonstrate comprehension of the linking of sounds and phrasing in various contexts
• Demonstrate comprehension of the structure of the language.

Speaking Ability:

• Produce recognizable words and phrases.
• Imitate authentic, including certain colloquial speech, patterns of intonation, stress, rhythm, linking, and pitch, using pinyin.
• Relate information orally using appropriate grammatical forms.
• Relate information orally using word order characteristic of the target language.
• Use familiar vocabulary and content in conversation.

Reading Ability:

• Sight read to help master pinyin
• Read aloud in the target language with proper inflection and accentuation.

Writing Ability:

• Write in pinyin and characters for handwriting practice
• Know aspects of character and capitalization peculiar to the target language.
• Learn to write certain core vocabulary in pinyin and in characters

Culture Awareness:

• Identify the major geographical areas where the language is spoken.
• Begin to understand the importance of culture and language interrelationships.
• Discuss popular sports, foods, pastimes of the countries of the target language.
• Identify festivals and holiday customs of the people of the target language.
• Identify some of the music of the target language.
• Identify and begin to imitate gestures (and behavior) used by the speakers of the target language.
• Demonstrate the use of formal and familiar forms of address in the target language.
• Gain a sense of the difference of the roles of men and women in the target language.
• Gain a sense of one's own strengths and limitations in an intercultural setting.

Identify benefits of knowing another language, such as, careers, travel, social and strategic communication, and connecting with one’s family background.

Last Revised: August 17, 2006