Introduction to Mandarin Chinese in 10 practical scenarios with tips on pronunciation, character recognition, grammar, and culture.
Recommended Uses:
Beginning Chinese teaching and learning
Technical Requirements:
Web browser and Macromedia Flash Player
Identify Major Learning Goals:
To learn basic conversational Chinese
Target Student Population:
Beginning Chinese learners
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
None
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
This web site provides 10 lessons on survival Chinese for beginning learners. Each lesson consists of a short practical dialogue presented sentence by sentence and accompanied by audio. Users can choose to view the texts in pinyin or English translation. They can also view a short video clip at the end of the lesson. Each lesson also includes useful phrases, cultural notes, and a challenge section that tests users on the phrases and sentences presented. This site is designed for true beginners, and it is an effective tool for learning practical Chinese conversations and simple characters that one may encounter when visiting China or a Chinese community.
Concerns:
Presenting the dialogs in Chinese characters in addition to pinyin and English would make this site an even more useful learning resource.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
This site is a self-contained module for beginning learners of practical Chinese. The attractive graphics, audio and video clips are very conducive to learning. The cultural tips are especially useful for a deeper understanding of the Chinese language.
Concerns:
Although the site provides useful tips for pronunciation. Several of them are not linguistically accurate.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The instruction is user friendly and the navigation is simple. No special computer skills are required. The audio quality is excellent, and the pronunciation clear.
Creative Commons:
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