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2020/2021

Language VIa: Modern Chinese

Code: 101561 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2500244 East Asian Studies OB 3 2
The proposed teaching and assessment methodology that appear in the guide may be subject to changes as a result of the restrictions to face-to-face class attendance imposed by the health authorities.

Contact

Name:
Minkang Zhou Gu
Email:
Minkang.Zhou@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
spanish (spa)
Some groups entirely in English:
No
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
No
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
No

Prerequisites

Language VIa: Modern Chinese is a continuation of the previous subject Language V: Modern Chinese. It is a consolidation, development and improvement course, which requires knowledge of all the basics of phonetics, grammar and structure of the characters of Chinese writing. Therefore, the basic requirement is to have passed all the previous Chinese language subjects.

Objectives and Contextualisation

Language VIa: Modern Chinese aims at consolidating and expanding knowledge of the structures of the Chinese language, in addition to basic knowledge acquired in the first and second years of the degree, the consolidation and expansion of basic knowledge of Chinese grammar acquired in the first and second years, expansion of vocabulary, improving pronunciation and writing skills; the development of reading skills and reading comprehension at the intermediate level and improving skills in oral and written language expression. Students will carry out a task focused on the classification and synthesis of the structures studied in order to learn to improve their social use of Chinese in political and social contexts in China and Taiwan.

Competences

  • Developing self-learning strategies.
  • Ensuring the quality of one's own work.
  • Produce oral texts in one of the languages of East Asia.
  • Solving problems of intercultural communication.
  • Understand oral texts in one of the languages of East Asia.
  • Understand texts written in one of the languages of East Asia.
  • Write texts in one of the languages of East Asia.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Apply knowledge of lexis, morphosyntax, texts, rhetoric and linguistic variation.
  2. Apply strategies to produce oral texts for different contexts and for specific communicative purposes.
  3. Apply strategies to produce written texts for different contexts and for specific communicative purposes.
  4. Apply strategies to understand oral texts from various different contexts.
  5. Apply strategies to understand written texts from various different contexts.
  6. Deal with interferences between the working languages.
  7. Developing self-learning strategies.
  8. Ensuring the quality of one's own work.
  9. Produce oral texts for different contexts and for specific communicative purposes.
  10. Produce oral texts that are appropriate to the context and linguistically correct.
  11. Produce written texts for different contexts and for specific communicative purposes.
  12. Produce written texts that are appropriate to the context and linguistically correct.
  13. Solving problems of intercultural communication.
  14. Understand the communicative intent and the meaning of oral texts from various different contexts.
  15. Understand the communicative intent and the meaning of written texts from various different contexts.

Content

In the course students will study in depth the contents of the last lessons of the textbook entitled "New Practical Chinese Reader", aimed at developing the skills of reading, listening, speaking and writing. Additional materials such as short stories, movies and news articles, working with authentic texts, will also be used. Contents can be grouped as follows:

Phonological and graphic:

• Reading new words and tones accurately. Correcting common errors of pronunciation; consolidating the knowledge acquired in previous courses
• Reading Chinese texts correctly and fluently
• Implementation of the pinyin transcription system to learn new vocabulary
• Identifying the different components of characters (semantic and phonetic parts), improving writing skills by computer.

Lexical-morphological:

• Review and expansion of frequently used vocabulary
• Recognition and writing of about 250 new Chinese characters
• Comprehension of about 500 new words
• Recognition of some 100 additional words
• Rules for forming words with known characters in Chinese
• Exercises to build the ability to deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words in reading texts
• Understanding and using new words formed by known characters

Grammar:

• Introduction of new elements to form different types of compound sentences
• Learning and using different nuances of new and previously learned adverbs
• Learning new collocations
• Review of prepositions and introduction of new elements
• Expanding potential and resultative complements 
• Reduplication of verbs and adjectives
• Comparative sentences

Functional:  

• Being able to read and understand the main ideas of texts, to properly translate them to Spanish
• Being ableto read and understand supplementary reading materials and answer related questions 
• Being able to understand authentic Intermediate listening materials 
• Understanding the social and cultural customs related to the topics of the texts
• Being able to write a composition of 500 characters to express your own views on the subjects related to the texts studied in class
• Being able to understand the comments of classmates related to the topics of the texts

Methodology

The formative activities are divided into directed activities, supervised activities, and autonomous activities. 

Directed activities: the teacher will explain the most important contents of each teaching unit, clear up queries of common interest, review the material studied so far, and set the students grammar exercises on each unit and the new vocabulary learnt, as well as tasks involving reading out loud, practising written comprehension,  visual expression throuth video on line, etc. At the end of the subject, a session will be devoted to general revision and troubleshooting.

Supervised activities: these activities, done by the student at home, will consist of exercises set by the teacher. Students will need to devote approximately 3 hours to completing the grammar and vocabulary exercises for each unit. 

Autonomous activities: the student will need to devote approximately 25 hours (following the student’s class work) per teaching unit to activities such as reading and preparation of texts, the new vocabulary and grammar presented in each lesson, practice in researching characters in monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, reading supplementary texts, writing comprehension.

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Lectures 40 1.6
Orinal text comprehension activities 3 0.12 1, 5, 4, 3, 13
Reading comprehension activities 3.5 0.14 1, 5, 12, 10
Visual expression activities 3 0.12 1, 5
Written production activities 3 0.12 1, 5, 3, 10
Type: Supervised      
Composition exercises 5 0.2 1, 5, 3, 7, 13, 8
Gramatical structure Exercises 5 0.2 5, 4, 3, 7, 10, 13, 8
Reading comprehension exercises 5 0.2 1, 5, 14, 7, 6, 13
Type: Autonomous      
Preparation of activities for reading comprehention 25 1 1, 14
Preparation of activities for written expression 25 1 1, 7
Study & practice of new words 25 1 5, 12

Assessment

Assessment is continuous. Students must provide evidence of their progress by completing tasks and tests. Task deadlines will be indicated in the course schedule on the first day of class. All activity deadlines are indicated in the subject's schedule and must be strictly adhered to.

Related matters

The above information on assessment, assessment activities and their weighting is merely a guide. The subject's lecturer will provide full information when teaching begins.

Review 

When publishing final marks prior to recording them on students' transcripts, the lecturer will provide written notification of a date and time for reviewing assessment activities. Students must arrange reviews by agreement with the lecturer.

Missed/failed assessment activities 

Students may retake assessment activities they have failed or compensate for any they have missed, provided that those they have actually performed account for a minimum of 66.6% (two thirds) of the subject's final mark and that they have a weighted average mark of at least 3.5. Under no circumstances may an assessment activity worth 100% of the final mark be retaken or compensated for.

The lecturer will inform students of the procedure involved, in writing, when publishing final marks prior to recording them on transcripts. The lecturer may set one assignment per failed or missed assessment activity or a single assignment to cover a number of such activities.

Classification as "not assessable" 

In the event of the assessment activities a student has performed accounting for just 25% or less of the subject's final mark, their work will be classified as "not assessable" on their transcript.

Misconduct in assessment activities 

Students who engage in misconduct (plagiarism, copying, personation, etc.) in an assessment activity will receive a mark of“0” for the activity in question. In the case of misconduct in more than one assessment activity, the students involved will be given a final mark of “0” for the subject.

Students may not retake assessment activities in which they are found to have engaged in misconduct. Plagiarism is considered to mean presenting all or part of an author's work, whether published in print or in digital format, as one's own, i.e. without citing it. Copying is considered to mean reproducing all or a substantial part of another student's work. In cases of copying in which it is impossible to determine which of two students has copied the work of the other, both will be penalised.  

More information: http://www.uab.cat/web/study-abroad/undergraduate/academic-information/evaluation/what-is-it-about-1345670077352.html

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Teaching portfolio 40% 3 0.12 1, 5, 4, 3, 2, 15, 14, 7, 12, 11, 10, 9, 6, 13, 8
Written tests 60% (30%+30%) 4.5 0.18 1, 5, 4, 3, 2, 15, 14, 7, 12, 11, 10, 9, 6, 13, 8

Bibliography

Textbook

New Practical Chinese Reader (Vol. IV), Liu Xun, Beijing Language and Culture University Press, Beijing (http://www.dismarlibros.com www.alibri@alibri.es)  

The remaining exercises, activities or information relevant to the subject will be found in the exercise books by the same author (work book).

The teacher will provide supplementary oral and written comprehension materials for each unit.

Dictionaries

Bilingual

- Zhou, Minkang, Diccionari Català-Xinès, Xinès-Català. Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana. (Diccionaris de l’Enciclopèdia),1999.

- Zhou, Minkang, Diccionari Castellà-Xinès, Xinès-Castellà. Barcelona: Editorial Herder,2006

Intended for Catalan/Spanish students. The first has several appendices, with the proper names of persons, abbreviations, geographic names, chemical elements, weights and measures, coins, etc.

Monolingual:

- Xinhua Zidian, Shangwu yinshuguan, Beijing, 2002. 

- Xiandai Hanyu Cidian, Shangwu yinshuguan, Beijing, 2008.

The first is small, very handy and practical. It is the popular dictionary par excellence. The definitions are very simple and easy to understand. In spite of its small size, it contains many characters (1000), including some less usual ones. The second, more bulky dictionary, is also the most common. There are numerous up-to-date editions of both dictionaries.

Grammars and other materials

- Xu Zenghui, Zhou, Minkang, Gramática china, Servei de publicacions de la UAB, Bellaterra, Materials 30, 1997, 2008.  

- Ramírez, Laureano, Del carácter al contexto: Teoría y práctica de la traducción del chino moderno, Servei de publicacions de l'UAB, Bellaterra, 1999.

Two manuals which will prove very useful throughout the degree course, because they cover all kinds of questions relating to Chinese language and grammar, to the Chinese socio-cultural context and translation.

Internet resources

http://www.zhongwen.com/

Web with information on the Chinese language

http://www.language.berkeley.edu/fanjian/toc.html

Web to practise Chinese writing

http://pinyin.info/readings/index.html

Web with information on phonetics and pinyin

Interactive games

http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/lang/chineselearn/

An attractive tool for revising and studying Chinese vocabulary.

http://eastasia.hawaii.edu/yao/icfc/index.html

Vocabulary trainer

http://enterzon.com/

Online game enabling the student to consolidate in an enjoyable way the knowledge already obtained.

Audiovisual support

Audiovisual means related to the topics of the teaching units will be used to enable students to gain a sensory knowledge of what they havelearnt.

More books related to the world of Chinese on line:

 https://mirades.uab.cat/ebs/