Sussex Centre for Language Studies
Open courses in modern languages
Mandarin Language and Chinese Culture - Stage 1
20 weekly meetings, 1.5 hours each.
This course is an introduction to Chinese everyday language for complete beginners. The
primary aim of the course is to enable students to use Chinese to exchange information and
communicate basic ideas. The development of communication skills in listening, speaking,
reading and writing will include approximately 250 Chinese characters and more than 400
words and phrases including also most radicals of Chinese characters, the phonetic units of
the Chinese language and basic sentence structures. A course book will be used to allow
students to work independently, for revision and regular practice at home (10 minutes a
day) and to form a framework for learning in class. The textbook includes a CD for students
to practice aural skills.
The course aims to give you sufficient language skills to be able to deal with simple
everyday situations:
- Personal information
- Numbers
- Time of year, month, date and day, hours
- Family / social arrangements
- Directions
- Food and drink
- Weather
- Seasons
- Buying and selling
- Accommodation
You will be given an insight into the culture of China within the framework of your language
studies. You will be encouraged to explore and develop your own strategies for study within
the syllabus and your own learning needs. There will be opportunities to study personal
cultural interests linked to the language.
Course learning outcomes
By the end of the course you will have improved your language skills and should be able to
speak slowly conveying a message in a variety of everyday situations. There may still be
errors with pronunciation and accent, but basic communication will be possible. You will be
able to comprehend and respond to both simple written and spoken language. Simple
grammatical structures will be taught. You will have gained a better appreciation of the
relationships between the language, history and culture of the country, as well as
developing greater confidence and enhanced autonomy in your language learning.
Teaching and learning methods
The teaching language used in class will be based on Chinese, though with a combination
of English to assist communication in class. The teacher will guide you through the basic
structures and functions of the beginners' syllabus. There will be practice in the four skills,
listening, speaking, reading and basic writing. You will be encouraged to develop basic
communicative skills, to learn grammatical structures, and to interpret simple written and
spoken stimuli. There will be preparation work set for subsequent classes which may be
taken from a course book.
Built into the course will be a number of assignments to allow you and your tutor to gauge
the progress made. These assignments naturally form part of the course and will usually be
multi-skilled, involving some reading, writing, speaking and listening. It will be important to
complete a learning/study plan and take an active part in the classes by completing the
assignments set. You will be given an opportunity to pursue your own personal research
into a topic of cultural interest which contains some potential for analysis or debate.
Certificate of Completion
At the end of the course you will receive an individual Record of Learning on request, giving
details of the course and your achievement of the aims and objectives. If the tutor
considers that you have gained as much as possible from the course, have achieved the
learning outcomes and have participated in the assessed activities, a Certificate of
Completion of the course will subsequently be issued, on request.
Course reading/reference
The text book will be available to purchase in the university bookshop.
Course book:
Textbook
Chinese in Steps book 1 (concentrate with 10
topics ) - George Zhang and Linda Li
Exercise book to be referenced:
Chinese in Steps book 1 - George Zhang and
Linda Li
Chinese Made Easy – Yamin Ma & Xinying Li
Chinese for GCSE – British Council
Suggested supplementary reading:
Colloquial Chinese – Kan Qian
Dictionary:
Oxford Chinese/English English/Chinese
Grammar reference:
Basic Chinese - a grammar and workbook - Yip
Po-Ching and Don Rimmington (Routledge)