Monash University Handbook 2010 Undergraduate - Unit

Synopsis

This unit is offered in China as part of the Chinese Incountry Program. It gives students an overview of the important sentence structures of modern standard Chinese. Equal emphasis is placed on the four skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. Speaking classes cover practical, everyday situations to develop interactive competence at a basic level in a range of situations likely to be encountered in daily life in contemporary China.

Objectives

Building on the language skills acquired in Chinese 3, on successful completion of Chinese 4 students will have developed:

1. The ability to read and write around an additional 200 Chinese characters (900) total;
2. An understanding of the basic syntax system of Modern Standard Chinese and of the similarities and differences between it and English;
3. Knowledge of a grammatical framework with which to analyse and describe the vernacular Chinese under study facilitating progression to later study of formal written Chinese (in Chinese Media Studies and Advanced Chinese);
4. Comprehension skills necessary to read simple modern vernacular texts;
5. Basic Chinese word processing skills, and
6. Oral/aural skills necessary to communicate quantitatively and qualitatively in a range of everyday, practical situations (approximates to International Second Language Proficiency Level 1+: transactional proficiency (able to satisfy all survival needs and limited social needs).

Assessment

Written work: 20%
Exam and tests: 50%
Oral test and class performance: 30%

Chief examiner(s)

Robert Irving

Off-campus attendance requirements

60 hours over three weeks

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Chinese language

Prerequisites

Chinese 3 language level proficiency or by permission

Prohibitions

CHI1040, CHI1904, CHI2040, CHI3904, CHI4040, CHI4904, CHI5040, CHI5904