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Exploring in Chinese

A DVD-based Course in Intermediate Chinese Volume 1By Cynthia Ning

Yale University Press

Copyright © 2008 Yale University
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-300-11569-7

Contents

Acknowledgments...........................................................7Introduction..............................................................8Unit A-1 Making FriendsLesson 1: Three Students Introduce Themselves.............................13Lesson 2: Interviews with Two Security Guards.............................23Lesson 3: Three Students Name Favorite Pastimes...........................45Lesson 4: American Students Interview a Chinese Woman.....................55Unit A-2 Making Friends (cont.)Lesson 5: A Seven-Way Chat................................................75Lesson 6: Introductory Comments by Two Boys...............................109Lesson 7: Advice on Making Friends........................................123Unit B Making Plans to Get TogetherLesson 8: Making an Appointment Face-to-Face..............................137Lesson 9: Making an Appointment on the Telephone..........................157Lesson 10: A Follow-up Call...............................................171Lesson 11: Advice on Refusing an Invitation...............................183Unit C Handling MealsLesson 12: Two Boys Comment on Dinner.....................................193Lesson 13: Ordering in a Chinese Restaurant (1)...........................203Lesson 14: Ordering in a Chinese Restaurant (2)...........................225Unit D ShoppingLesson 15: Buying T-Shirts................................................245Lesson 16: Buying Souvenirs...............................................253Lesson 17: Buying Postcards...............................................261Lesson 18: Buying Snacks..................................................281Lesson 19: Buying Magazines...............................................289Lesson 20: Advice on How to Shop..........................................309

Introduction

Exploring in Chinese is a DVD-based course in intermediate Chinese divided into two volumes of one semester each for the college level, or one year each for the high school level. This curriculum aims at moving the Intermediate Low student towards Intermediate High, particularly in listening, speaking, and reading. It is expected that the student's ability in writing in Chinese characters will remain somewhere between the Intermediate Low and Intermediate Mid levels.

Creating the DVD The curriculum is based on edited video footage filmed in Beijing, China, in the summer of 1999. Its content includes interviews, filmed interactions among two or more people, and records of common transactions, all of which were purposely unrehearsed and unscripted, in order to maximize the "naturalness" and spontaneity of the interactions. The on-camera interviewers included three U.S. students: Robyn Yee, a high school junior and an Intermediate Low speaker of Chinese; Todd Pavel, graduate student in Asian Studies and an Intermediate Mid speaker of Chinese; and James Yao, graduate student in Asian Studies and an Advanced speaker of Chinese. Each of the interviewers was given a variety of assignments ("Go in this store and buy some snacks," "Ask that security guard about his background" ). We also interviewed a variety of Chinese people about their lives. The cues were general: "Tell us about how you spend an average day," or "How should an American student go about making friends?" The Chinese respondents very naturally adjusted their level of speech downwards since they were faced with "foreigners," so that what we recorded was more nearly at the optimal "i+l" level for the intermediate-level learner, rather than the normally "too high" level recorded as native-speaker speech. Also, since all segments were unrehearsed and unscripted, what we preserved is a record of people interacting in authentic and lively fashion-trying to decipher what each other is saying, asking for confirmation, working around miscues-all the elements of a real-life conversation. The curriculum is based on a DVD of 37 video segments arranged by topic and function. The first 20 lessons (Volume 1) are more characteristic of the Intermediate Low/Mid level, focusing on daily life interactions and transactions. The remaining 17 lessons (Volume 2) gradually become more descriptive and narrative, as is appropriate to moving toward the Intermediate High level. Each lesson offers two sound-tracks-the original sound recorded live (which is authentic and more interesting but sometimes harder to understand), and a dubbed soundtrack recorded in a studio (which is clearer but contains none of the color of the original, and does not quite match the cadence of the visuals). My suggestion is that users listen to the authentic soundtrack as much as possible, and certainly for all the first times they contact the material; the dubbed soundtrack can serve as a backup, perhaps as a final listening tool.

Contents of the Student Text The DVD is correlated with the two volumes of the student text, with learning activities divided into 37 lessons-20 lessons in Volume 1 (third semester college or third year high school) and 17 in Volume 2 (fourth semester college or fourth year high school). The lessons follow the format described below:

Previewing Activity: generally, predicting the content of the video, to "activate schemata" (bringing to mind sets of previously learned information about any given topic, to aid in comprehension). First Viewing, in which the focus is on understanding the main ideas in the segment. (Each "viewing" may actually include multiple viewings, of course.) Second Viewing, to tease out supporting details included in the segment. Third Viewing, to support linguistic work: focusing on specific useful new vocabulary and selected structural items. Cultural discussions may also be included here, although information on culture may be derived throughout the lesson. Postviewing Activities, including Speaking activities (in which students spiral the content of the lesson into speaking about their own lives); Reading activities including notes/letters written by native speakers pertaining to the objectives of the lesson, and a series of exercises beginning with top-down strategies (in which students try to decipher the main ideas of the reading) and progressing to bottom-up strategies (in which students work on vocabulary and detailed comprehension); and a brief Writing activity, in which students take the content of the Reading unit and write something about themselves. Transcript of the video segment, given in traditional characters, simplified characters, pinyin, and English. This is provided for the convenience of both the teacher and the students, who might want to read quickly through after all the other exercises have been completed, to pick up more information about the content of the segment, and perhaps to answer any remaining questions about what was said.

Within each section, students are encouraged to view the segment as many times as necessary to complete the assigned tasks. Our suggestion is not to read the transcript before doing all the exercises provided, or else students will not have the opportunity to develop comprehension strategies for authentic (or simulated authentic) situations. Students need to develop their tolerance for native-speaker speech, as well as their skills in...