This course is aimed at those who have learned Mandarin Chinese part–time for approximately one year and have in command around 160 Chinese characters and expressions. More intensive training will be provided to substantially improve their communication skills in oral, aural and written form.

This module will enable students to use a broader, but still limited range of oral, aural and written skills in terms of both the application of ‘pin yin’ and the Chinese characters, sufficient for practical needs in simple everyday situations. Students will also develop an understanding of the culture of China.

METHODS OF TEACHING: i) Weekly two-hour workshops taught by Tutors from the Cardiff University Confucius Institute
METHODS OF ASSESSMENT: i) Coursework (20%) 2 pieces of text production
ii) Oral continuous assessment (40%) iii) Aural class test (40%)

Email: languages@cardiff.ac.uk

 Knowledge and Understanding:    

• show their ability to use simple phrases and sentences by talking about themselves, their family and everyday life.
•  demonstrate their ability to recognise familiar words and simple phrases inthe target language by taking part in role-plays and similar learning tasks.
• demonstrate their ability to understand the gist and extract information from simple texts by adequately completing listening tasks.
• demonstrate some knowledge of simple grammatical structures and phrases by writing short texts.

Intellectual Skills:                               

•  integrate information provided in taught sessions and private study.

 Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills:

• demonstrate their ability to catch the main point in short, clear and simple spoken messages, announcements and dialogues.
• demonstrate their ability to communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar topics and activities.
• read simple texts and find specific predictable  information in simple everyday material.
• demonstrate their ability to write short, simple texts relating to matters in areas of immediate need using simple sentence structures and vocabulary

Students will actively participate in dialogues, group discussions and other interactive language exercises. The use of multi-media teaching facilities such as power-point presentations, CD playing and Internet learning resources will enhance students’ active language learning.

24 contact hours – interactive language work-shops.

•   to be responsive to the discipline of working with others as part of a group
•    to understand and reflect upon different cultures and societies

Written class test (40%) and course work (20%): to test students’ ability to  understand simple texts, produce written responses and translate simple sentences.

Oral continuous assessment (20%): to test students’ ability to produce oral dialogues in Chinese

Aural class test (20%) to test students’ comprehension of spoken Mandarin on familiar day- to- day topics

     *There are 3 lessons in each unit.

Apart from the language and grammatical points above, the syllabus also includes the following:

• Session- to- session review of Pinyin & tones
• Learning about 100 new Chinese characters (with each week introducing 10)
• Introducing relevant cultural knowledge.