CALIFORNIA STATE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY, POMONA

ACADEMIC SENATE

GENERAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE

REPORT TO

THE ACADEMIC SENATE

GE-011-089

FL 271, Intermediate Chinese I

(GE Area C3)

General Education Committee Date: 7/9/09

Executive Committee

Received and Forwarded Date: 7/15/09

Academic Senate Date: 9/30/09

First Reading

10/21/09

Second Reading

BACKGROUND:

The EFL department is requesting approval to offer an intermediate sequence of Chinese courses as GE courses at the 200-level: FL 271Intermediate Chinese; FL 272 Intermediate Chinese II; and FL 273 Intermediate Chinese III. These are existing courses that the EFL department has offered for several years. The department is proposing to add this course, FL 271, to GE Area C3.

Rationale for Proposed Change: Provides students with the opportunity to develop oral and written competency in Mandarin Chinese at the intermediate level. GE Area C3 has a host of intermediate language courses in it already.

FL271,FL 272, and FL 273 help Cal Poly Pomona students develop oral and written competency in Mandarin Chinese at the intermediate level, and to acquire comprehensive knowledge in various aspects of Chinese culture, arts, education, history, government, economics, and business. These courses meet the GE criteria, which stipulate that courses in area C3 should provide students with an appreciation of language and literature, underscoring both the relationship between culture and language and deepening students’ appreciation of diverse cultures to our literary and linguistic heritage. These courses will help students meet GE requirements in area C3.

RESOURCES CONSULTED:

CLASS Curriculum Committee, Dr. Lise-Helene V. Smith, Dr. Isabel M. Bustamante, Dr. Da'an Pan, Meijuan Dong, Dr Claudia Pinter-Lucke.

RECOMMENDATION:

The General Education Committee voted unanimously to support GE-011-089, FL 271, Intermediate Chinese I (GE Area C3), 8-0-0.

CALIFORNIA STATE POLYTECHNIC Course Title: FL 271 Intermediate

UNIVERSITY, POMONA Chinese I

Date of Preparation: 11/18/02

Date of Revision: 1/22/08, 04/11/09

Prepared By: Meijuan Dong, Isabel M. Bustamante-López, Da’an Pan, and Lise-Hélène Smith

COURSE OUTLINE

Catalog Description

FL 271 Intermediate Chinese I (4)

Expansion of the first year Mandarin Chinese. Continuation of the development of the four language skills of aurally understanding, speaking, reading and writing within a cultural context. Increasing sophistication of grammatical constructions and more advanced language requirement. 4 lecture/discussions. Prerequisite: FL-173 or its equivalent.

Required Background

This course is designed for students who have successfully completed a rigorous one-year college course in spoken and written Mandarin Chinese, or its equivalent. To enroll in the course, students must have completed FL-173 or its equivalent.

Expected Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to do the following:

a. Become familiar with Chinese cultural heritage and their own.

b. Develop the capacity to be creative and to appreciate creativity in others.

c. Discover the significance of great creative writings and communicative customs and traditions of the Chinese cultures.

d. Understand our own literacy and linguistic heritage through the study of Chinese language and culture

c. Develop spoken and written competency in Mandarin Chinese, and to acquire comprehensive knowledge in various aspects of Chinese culture and literature.

d. Demonstrate a low intermediate (level 1) level of proficiency of the language.

Student will be able to:

1. Understand sentence-length utterances which consist of recombination of learned vocabulary on a variety of every day topics

2.  Comprehend face-to-face conversations pertinent to personal needs and

social conventions such as lodging, shopping, etc.

3.  Ask and answer questions, initiate and respond to simple statements

and maintain face-to-face conversations

4.  Handle successfully uncomplicated, basic and communicative tasks

such as booking an air-ticket, comparing dorm life to apartment dwellings

5.  Comprehend main ideas and/or some facts from the simple connected texts

dealing with a variety of basic personal and social needs

6.  Read consistently with increased understanding the texts that are

linguistically noncomplex and have a clear underlying internal structure

7. Write short paragraphs that consist of recombination of learned vocabulary and structures on very familiar topics

8. Meet a number of practical writing needs such as simple letters; content

includes everyday events and other personal experience

Texts and Readings

1.  Yao, et al. Integrated Chinese Level One/Part Two: Textbook. (simplified character edition) Boston: Cheng & Tusi Company, 1997.

2.  Yao, et al. Integrated Chinese Level One/Part Two: Workbook. (simplified character edition) Boston: Cheng & Tusi Company, 1997.

3.  Yao, et al. Integrated Chinese Level One/Part Two: Character Workbook. (simplified character edition) Boston: Cheng & Tusi Company, 1997.

4.  Supplemental materials for practice exercises & homework provided by the instructor.

5.  Relevant online materials.

Minimum Student Materials

The required textbook and class set, a notebook, index cards, access to computer and Internet.

Minimum College Facilities

Technology-enhanced classroom.

Course Outline

Detailed Description of the Course:

This course will help students expand from their base in first year Chinese (or its equivalent) to continue to develop their four skills of aurally understanding, speaking, reading and writing. In this class, students will read excerpts to learn about Chinese ancient philosophies and literatures such as Confucianism, Taoism, poetry in Tang Dynasty, and classical novels in Qing and Ming Dynasties

Language instruction will include:

Listening Comprehension

1.  Directions, instructions, requests, questions, commands, and social utterances

2.  Auditory discrimination of Chinese phonology

3.  Discrimination of lexical and grammatical structures

Oral Communication

1.  Conversation practice

a.  Small group open-discussion skills

b.  Recounting events, incidents, description, and explanations

2.  Control of basic syntactical features

3.  Control of tonal utterances

Reading

1.  Decoding: basic sound-word correlation

2.  Comprehension

a.  Main idea

b.  Supporting details

c.  Scanning/skimming

3.  Vocabulary

a.  Sight recall of common vocabulary words

b.  Idiomatic expressions

D. Writing
1. Techniques of narrative, descriptive, and simple expository paragraph
development
2. Techniques for sentence combining


E. Grammar

1. Conjunctions

2. Particles

3. Complements

4. Emphatic patterns

5. Time aspect of present perfect

6. Passive voice

7. Comparison

E. Culture

1. Ancient Chinese philosophies: Confucianism & Taoism

2. Poetry in the most prosperous Chinese era: Tang Dynasty

3. The four most well-known fictions in Ming & Qing Dynasties

4. Chinese traditional paintings with the most influential themes

5. A splendid national drama: Beijing Opera

6. Traditional folk arts and crafts

7. Sino-US cultural comparisons: literary traditions and art

Instructional Methods

A variety of instructional methods will be used to help students achieve the course outcomes. These include:

A.  Lectures by the instructor on new lessons, specific topics, grammar points, and phonetics

B.  Group and class discussions on listening comprehension, language points, reading texts, and cultural concepts

C.  Pair work and group activities on grammar exercises, pattern drills, and situational dialogues

D.  Games and problem-solving activities through the interaction between the instructor and students, as well as among students

E.  Collaborative team project on cultural topics presented by using computer-assisted exercises, e.g. Power point

F.  Classroom presentations by students, followed by evaluations from peers and instructor

G.  Use of audio/video media
IX. Outcomes Assessment

A.  Students’ learning outcomes will be evaluated based on both observable and measurable methods, which include:

1.  Class attendance and participation in discussion and group work

2.  Collaborative team projects on cultural topics

3.  Oral / aural performances

4.  Reading and writing homework assignments

5.  Chapter quizzes

6.  Written midterm

7.  Final examination

B. General Education Outcomes Assessment

The course will be assessed in an on-going manner: throughout the course, students will be asked to provide feedback and suggestions to the instructor regarding the pace of teaching, instructional methods, course content, student workload, and class requirements. Based on the input of the students, the instructor will adjust and improve teaching strategies accordingly, if the contributions are rational and constructive.

GE assessment will also be carried out by examination of the level and quality of student oral and written communication work collected throughout the quarter and by examination of students’ responses to the instructor’s prepared written evaluation of the course, which will be in addition to the departmental end-of-the quarter questionnaire. Oral examination will give students the opportunity to demonstrate spoken competency in Mandarin Chinese at the low intermediate level (Outcomes III. e. and f.). The written communication work collected throughout the quarter and the complementary evaluation will consist of an objective and written assessment which will specifically identify how students have attained the course’s educational objectives: familiarity with Chinese cultural heritage and their own, capacity to be creative and to appreciate creativity in others, understanding of the significance of great creative writings and communicative customs and traditions of the Chinese cultures, understanding of our own literacy and linguistic heritage through the study of the Chinese language and culture, written competency in Mandarin Chinese at the low intermediate level, comprehensive knowledge in various aspects of Chinese culture and literature.

In addition students will be asked to rate the importance of the educational objectives and how these objectives and the course might be improved.

The data collected from these various assessment tools will be used to determine the extent to which the course has helped students develop the skills necessary to succeed at Cal Poly Pomona, explore the nature and value of a university education, and to succeed as life long learners.