WORLD LANGUAGE COURSES

Mandarin 1B

(7-8)

Prerequisite: Mandarin 1A or departmental approval.

A continuation of Mandarin 1A, this course allows students to continue their focused study of the underpinnings of Mandarin in a creative way. The performance target is novice-mid. Students at this level can communicate about familiar topics using a variety of basic words and phrases that they have practiced and memorized. Course instruction and assignments continue to address all four aspects of language acquisition: oral communication, listening comprehension, written proficiency, and reading comprehension in order to lay a solid foundation for further Mandarin study. Students continue to refine both the Pinyin system and simplified Chinese characters.

Mandarin 1

This is a year-long entry level course that is appropriate for Upper School students with little or no prior knowledge of Mandarin. It is designed to develop students’ listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in basic communication patterns and expression. Chinese culture and customs will also be introduced. The main objectives include developing students’ communicative linguistic proficiency and competency, promoting cultural sensitivity, and developing their overall fluency to novice-low level. Students at this level can communicate on very familiar topics using a variety of words and phrases that they have practiced and memorized. The focus of the course is balanced between communicative content and language structure and forms. By the end of the academic year, students should be able to express themselves, engage in basic conversations on familiar topics, as well as read and write simple characters and paragraphs in simplified characters with Pinyin.