EALC 407News and Web Chinese

Instructor: Tin-Yu Tseng Program director: Dr. Audrey Li

Class meetings: M/W 2-3:30 pm at THH113Office: THH 356 M; mail box:THH356

Office: THH 356H; mail box: THH 356Phone(213) 740-3717

Phone: (213) 740-3715E-mail:

Email: ffice hours: by appointment

Office hours: T/Th1-2:30 pm, and by

appointment

News and journalism in Modern Chinese generally take special form and vocabulary. News is an important source of information about the country, people and culture. It is generally written in an expository writing style that is most commonly encountered in working with the Chinese language and culture. Literacy in news and journalistic Chinese is an important skill and is an indispensable tool for progressing toward native proficiency.

The majority of the course will focus on the reading of news stories. Since the Internet has asignificant influence on how news is written and broadcast, we will use web as the major resource to access the most current news stories. The availability of electronic and on-line dictionaries also makes news stories much easier to understand. It is essential that you have access to computers that can read Chinese.For regular assignments and practice, you will be asked tovisit Chinese news websites to read the news and take turns to present the news stories to the class.

In each class meeting, we will also acquire the tactics and skills of reading Chinese news by studying a textbook together. According to the topic, we will learn important vocabulary and sentence structures through intensive readings and learn to skim for ideas and summarize them through extensive readings.

We will combine different media types and make the best use of technology to facilitate our learning. As exposure to the audiovisual presentation of television news broadcast is also important for learning modern journalistic Chinese, some class sessions will be held at the multimedia room to view Chinese video segments of headline news on the web.

In order to efficiently learn to read news in journalistic and web Chinese, write summaries, you are expected to:

  1. be able to use Pinyin fluently
  2. be able to use a Chinese word processor like NJStar
  3. be able to search for Chinese materials on line

For each lesson, the following sequence will be followed:

  1. build a list of important vocabulary and sentences
  2. read an assigned story (intensive reading)
  3. read related stories (extensive reading)
  4. summarize, orally present the stories, discuss the contents

Materials:

  1. Reading Chinese Newspapers: Tactics and Skills, by Stanley Mickel, Far Eastern Publications, YaleUniversity, 1995.
  2. Reading Chinese Newspapers: Tactics and Skills, Student’s Workbook.
  3. The Internet
  4. Print newspapers

Class Meetings:

1. Attend the class and participate in the class activities. Regular attendance is essential for the

fulfillment of course requirements. Active participation can improve your grade. If for any reason you cannot come to class, you must inform the instructor in advance and provide supporting documents (such as a doctor's note) to be excused. Frequent absences without legitimate reasons will affect your grade. For every 8 hours you are absent from class without any legitimate reasons, you will be downgraded by 1 level ( e.g. from an A to an A-). If you miss 40% or more of total class time during the semester, you will automatically receive an F, regardless of your performance in the class.

2. Please come to class on time. Arriving10 minutes late or leaving 10 minutes early will

be considered as an absence.

  1. Course syllabus, Weekly Schedule, and all announcements will be posted at

. The instructor is not responsible for students not being informed of

homework or the up-coming class activities due to absence from checking the website.

  1. Please turn off your cellular phones in class.

Evaluation:

Except for pre-lesson vocabulary quizzes, there will be no written tests. As part of coursework, there will be a midterm colloquium and final colloquium. The colloquia are presentations on randomly selected news stories. Each of you will be assigned a partner to scan and read a news story for some time. Afterward, the class will present and discuss the stories together. You’ll receive a grade for attending and participating in the activities.

As for regular coursework, for each intensive and extensive reading assignment you will be expected to:

  1. Build your vocabulary list
  2. Take vocabulary quizzes
  3. List important patterns and sample sentences
  4. Summarize your readings
  5. Discuss the readings in class
  6. Present reports/news stories weekly from other resources (e.g. on-line current news stories)

All work, with all corrections made, should be placed in a folder and the entire folder should be turned in at the end of the semester.

There will be a final presentation for youto present anews story or journalistic report based on your own research. The details regarding the writing format and requirement will be explained in an instruction handout later in the semester.

Quizzes/tests and homework make up policies:

  1. Quizzes/tests: the quizzes/tests not taken at the scheduled time may be made up only if advance arrangement has been made with your instructor, or if a documented emergency is received. Make-ups for quizzes and tests will have 10% taken off the initial points awarded. All make-ups must be made within one week.
  1. Homework will be graded based on a 10-point scale. All late assignments turned in after the due date within one week grace period will be credited with maximum of 50% of the initial grade earned. No late work will be accepted after one week. Sloppily written assignment, incomplete assignment or assignment with too many errors will be returned without any points.

More fun projects:

  1. If you are interested in earning an extra credit in the range of 0.5%-2% added to the final grade, you can initiate and complete a special project, after consultation with your instructor. Such a project must be of semester-long efforts. The credit will be awarded according to the merit of the project. To begin such a project, you must meet with your instructor by 1/28/2008 (Monday) to decide on the topic and plan. The special project should be completed and submitted by 4/30/2008 (Wednesday).

2. Field trip: A field trip will be organized and details will be provided in class in due time.

Percentage:

  1. attendance and class participation 10%
  2. list of vocabulary, patterns, sentences 10%
  3. homework (workbook exercises)20%
  4. folder 5%
  5. vocabulary quiz 10%
  6. weekly presentations 20%
  7. midterm & final colloquia 15%
  8. Final presentation10%

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Total 100%

A 94-100 A- 90-93

B+ 87-89 B 84-86 B- 80-83

C+ 77-79 C 74-76 C- 70-73 D+ 60-69 F below 60Pass: C or above

Addendum

* Academic dishonesty (plagiarism, cheating, etc.) will not be tolerated. Please do not take this matter lightly. For the Statement of Academic Integrity/Dishonesty, please read the 2002 SCampus.

* Accommodation for students with disabilities: Students who need to request accommodations based on a disability are required to register each semester with the Disability Services and Programs office (Student Union, Room 301). In addition, a letter of verification to the course instructor, from the Disability Services and Programs office is needed for the semester in which you are enrolled for thiscourse. If you have questions concerning this procedure, please contact both the instructor of the course, and the Disability Services and Programs office at (213) 740-0776.