【Chinese-Adult】CSL-Adult Beginner (Chinese as Second Language)

Course Goals:

This course is designed for beginning students of Modern Chinese. The course is

designed to prepare the beginning students to gain basic communication skills of

Chinese language and to move on to the higher level(s) of study this language.

The textbook used in this course aims to help beginners develop their

communicative competence in the four basic skills of listening, speaking, reading

and writing the Chinese language, as well as in Chinese culture. The course

adopts the functional view of language, which leads to an emphasis on

communicative language learning.

Objectives:

Students will learn basic vocabulary and sentence structures for use in

essential daily-life situations. Pinyin (the Chinese phonetic system) will be

taught as a tool to learn the spoken Chinese through basic training in

pronunciation and intonation. Students will also learn Chinese characters

and character formation in order to be able to communicate effectively and

meaningfully in forms of reading and writing. Approximately 200 words and

expressions in both Pinyin and character forms will be taught. Students will

also practice on basic grammar rules required for communication. While

linguistic aspects of Chinese language are the primary focus, introduction to

the social and cultural background of the language will also constitute an

Important part of the course.