Chinese 8A/B : Introduction to Chinese conversation

Course description:

This course is designed for students with previous knowledge of elementary Mandarin Chinese. It emphasizes on developing students’ oral communication skill for basic personal and social needs. There will be many performance-based activities in which students need to complete tasks using Mandarin Chinese. Contemporary culture in Chinese speaking areas are also introduced in the course.


Objectives:
1. Speak with correct pronunciation and intonation patterns.
2. Ask and answer questions and participate in conversations on topics related to everyday
situations.
3. Show accuracy in word order, basic constructions, and use of high-frequency verbs,
auxiliaries, time words and other time markers to indicate time relations.
4. Narrate and describe with paragraph-length connected discourse using connectors such as
yinwei..., suoyi... (because...), keshi... (but...), haiyou... (in addition), etc.