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Course Description
This is a beginning Mandarin Chinese course intended to develop students’ ability to perform the tasks of the novice language learner. Mandarin Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect and is the national standard language of the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan).
Using age-appropriate activities, focusing on the Chinese pinyin Romanization system (tones, rules of phonetic spelling, and pronunciation drill), traditional/simplified characters (creation and evolution, stroke order, structure, and the writing system), and culture (festivals, arts, minority groups, religion, and cuisine, etc), students develop their language skills in listening, speaking, writing and reading. Further, it is the acquisition of language functions, vocabulary, and structures through contextualized presentations/lectures, interactive activities, practice, daily work, homework, and tests.