Elementary Chinese Reader 3

[Yamila Comejo]

Afew summers ago I became addicted to the language-learning app Duolingo. I was a complete beginner in Chinese having spent the previous year attending a few scattered elementary classes and, like many people in my situation, was searching for a magic app that could transport me to fluency.

A friend who I met on a trip to China and whose Chinese was more advanced than mine told me he had been using an app that helped him build vocabulary and learn sentence structures. Out of curiosity I downloaded it and was soon hooked.

For the uninitiated, DuoLingo is an app that turns language learning into a simple and addictive game. The app lets you take courses that are split by topics, starting with basic introductions and progressing to more complex themes like business and travel.

I disagree that communicating in Chinese has much to do with learning rules and I disagree even more that encountering isolated, unnatural sentences that native speakers would never actually say is an effective way of acquiring grammar.

Alternative tools, such as graded readers are much more effective than DuoLingo at immersing learners in grammar patterns because they are designed to enable those with a small vocabulary to read extensively rather than translating one random, isolated sentence at a time. However wacky DuoLingo sentences might be, they will never be as compelling as good stories and meaningful articles on interesting topics.

Shortly after completing Duolingo, I discovered Mandarin Companion graded readers starting from as few as 150 words. The website LingQ also has a series of mini-stories aimed at beginners in Chinese. If I had known about these resources earlier I would have quit DuoLingo sooner. In the end, it was these tools combined with taking every opportunity to practice speaking the language, not DuoLingo, that transported me to fluency.

In one limited sense, DuoLingo has a valid claim to being useful; as an aid to vocabulary building in the initial stages of learning Chinese. Learners who know fewer than 150 words will struggle to read the simplest beginner books or articles and DuoLingo can help bridge the gap to meaningful content. Learning your first few dozen words in Chinese can feel like a slog and the app is at least as fun as your average textbook.

Wow, I really enjoyed the presentation of your article and I agree! I have been using Duo Lingo for several years and have experimented with all the languages they offer, but I have narrowed it down from 37 to just 17 languages to work on. I agree with you that a person should put more energy into language learning than just one program, regardless of which one it is. I am thrilled with Ninchanese and the link to it! I had never heard of it before so I really appreciate you sharing it.

The longitudinal predictive power of four important reading-related skills (phonological skills, rapid naming, orthographic skills, and morphological awareness) to Chinese word reading and writing to dictation (i.e., spelling) was examined in a 3-year longitudinal study among 251 Chinese elementary students. Rapid naming, orthographic skills, and morphological awareness assessed in Grade 1 were significant longitudinal predictors of Chinese word reading in Grades 1 to 4. As for word spelling, rapid naming was the only significant predictor across grades. Morphological awareness was a robust predictor of word spelling in Grade 1 only. Phonological skills and orthographic skills significantly predicted word spelling in Grades 2 and 4. After controlling for autoregressive effects, morphological awareness and orthographic skills were the significant longitudinal predictors of Chinese word reading and word spelling, respectively. These findings reflected the impacts of the Chinese orthography on children's reading and spelling development.

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Tian Tian Zhongwen is a carefully graded Chinese reader series for high-elementary Chinese language learners and above. This anthology of stories contains a rich and colorful selection of enjoyable reading about China, covering a wide range of topics including modern China, ancient fables, history, culture lifestyle and the Chinese language. Besides gaining a greater insight into China, these stories help learners increase their Chinese reading and Simplified Chinese characters recognition skills through meaningful and stimulating contexts. Colorful illustrations to explain the main ideas of the story. Each book in the series contains 20 stories, divided into four levels:

Currently A Nice Lady in Shanghai and Other Stories and Bicycle Kingdom and Other Stories in Turquoise level, and Teahouse in China and Other Stories and Beijing's Courtyards and Other Stories in Violet level are available. Gold and Violet levels are coming soon.

This is a beginning course of modern Mandarin Chinese for students with no prior exposure to the language. The content of this course includes: 1) An introduction to the Romanization phonetic system of Chinese (Pinyin); 2) Essential sentence structures and basic vocabulary in the area of greeting, self-introduction, family, hobbies and visiting friends; 3) Approximately 180 characters in simplified form. The major goal of this course in to help students develop the basic skill in listening, speaking, reading and writing.

This is a continuation of Chinese 110. The content of this course includes: 1) Essential sentence structures and basic vocabulary in the area of school life, language learning, making an appointment and shopping. 2) Approximately 120 characters in simplified form. The major goal of this course is to help students further develop proficiency in four skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing.

This is a parallel course to Chinese 126 designed for students with significant Chinese background in listening and speaking. The goal is to lay a good foundation in Chinese for further study and to strive for a well-rounded development of communicative skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in Mandarin Chinese. It provides basic training on pronunciation and tones, character recognition and production skills, syntactic structures and usage, and high-frequency vocabulary. Skills in reading and writing are emphasized.

This class presents an introduction to Chinese cinema from its birth in 1905 up to the present. It focuses on the close-reading and appreciation of representative Chinese films. Arranged chronologically and thematically, this course examines interaction of film texts with social contexts. In-depth analyses of films from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan leads students to consider theoretical questions such as film aesthetics, production, distribution, and reception. Topics include relationships of cinema and mass culture, history, ideology, colonialism, and globalization.

This course introduces the logographic nature of the Chinese writing system and its historical development and contemporary variations, analyzes the structure of Chinese characters, and develops ability to recognize Chinese characters in a variety of printed and non-printed forms, with emphasis on hands-on experience. Lectures with demonstrations.

This course introduces social and cultural diversity through the lens of language. Three main foci: classification of the minorities and their languages, language contact and the formation of Chinese dialects, and the role of language in identifying ethnic groups and in maintaining distinct cultures.

This course surveys the nature and development of traditional Chinese literature written in the vernacular over a period of more than 1,000 years from the Tang through Qing dynasties. Students read selections in English translation from major works and become familiar with genres, such as ballads, transformation texts (bianwen), vernacular short stories, novels, and bannermen tales (zidishu).

This is a continuation of Chinese 127 designed for students with significant Chinese background in listening and speaking. This course provides advanced-beginning students with Mandarin Chinese language skills training in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Reading and writing will be emphasized. Students will learn both Chinese language culture through content-based teaching materials and task-oriented activities. By the end of the semester, students will be able to comprehend and engage in basic conversations, to read simple authentic materials, and to write sentences and paragraphs.

Develops student's reading and speaking ability in Mandarin. Students should recognize approximately 1800 characters by year's end. Course will be centered around reading, as well as viewing and discussing several short plays from the People's Republic of China. Other assignments include frequent quizzes, unit exams, homework assignments, and class attendance.

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