CN 301 - Chinese Language in Context: Emerging Independent Abroad I

This class is intended to be a course in Chinese language as part of IES Abroad Shanghai Program for non-Chinese speaking students who have studied Chinese for at least 4 semesters. The lessons encompass 250 frequently used words, 180 characters and 30 grammar items, as well as the topics that the foreigners are more likely to encounter in their study, life and work. It places emphasis on improving the ability of the learner to use Chinese for communication. Class activities include making dialogs, playing language games, performing skits, outdoor activities, etc. Through these exercises, students will further improve their listening, reading, speaking, and writing skills. They will begin to develop the ability to generate paragraphs. They will be able to understand basic language materials that they encounter in their daily life, work and other common social occasions, to communicate and exchange ideas with others on familiar topics and to describe briefly basic situations relevant to these topics. Research has demonstrated that study abroad can enhance every aspect of language ability. One of the most important general findings of this research is, however, that study abroad is most beneficial for the development of abilities related to social interaction. Students who go abroad can learn to do things with words, such as requesting, apologizing, or offering compliments, and they may also learn to interpret situations calling such speech acts in ways that local people do…In short, and logically, study abroad has been show to enhance the aspects of communicative competence that are most difficult to foster in classroom settings (IES Abroad MAP for Language and Intercultural Communication, p. 6).