Chinese as a First Language - Units 1 and 2

Prerequisites

Chinese as a First Language is designed for students who, typically, will have spent some time as a resident and/or have had some experience of studying Chinese in a country in which Chinese is a major language of communication.

Scope of the unit

The aims of the units are to develop:

ability to use Chinese to communicate with others
understanding and appreciation of the student's own and other cultures
understanding of language as a system
potential to apply Chinese to work, further study, training or leisure.

Areas of study

Themes and topics

self and others: personal world, personal beliefs and ideals, contributing to community
tradition and change in the Chinese-speaking communities: lifestyles, arts and entertainment, stories from the past
global issues: peace, human rights, the nature and future of work.

Grammar and vocabulary

the formal aspects of language such as phonology, orthography, syntax, morphology and semantics
while there is no prescribed vocabulary list, it is expected that the student will be familiar with a range of vocabulary and idioms relevant to the topics; students are encouraged to use dictionaries

Kinds of writing
Students are expected to be familiar with, and be able to produce, the following five kinds of writing: personal, informative, persuasive, evaluative and imaginative.

Assessment

Outcomes	Assessment Tasks (School-graded Tasks)
Students will have satisfactorily completed this unit when they have demonstrated the specific set of outcomes listed below.
Unit 1
Establish and maintain a spoken or written exchange related to an issue of interest or concern. Read, listen to, and reorganise information and ideas from written and spoken texts.	discussion or personal letter/fax/email listen to spoken text (discussion, interview, broadcast) and extract and use information and ideas in a different text-type read a written text (article, report, letter) and extract and use information and ideas in a different text-type
Produce a personal response to a fictional text.	oral presentation or review or article
Unit 2
Participate in a spoken or written exchange focusing on the resolution of an issue. On completion of this unit, students should be able to read, listen to, and extract and compare information and ideas from written and spoken texts.	formal letter/fax/email or role-play listen to spoken texts (interview, discussion, debate) and compare information and ideas obtained in a given format in Chinese read two or more written texts (letters, articles, reports) and compare information and ideas obtained in a given format in Chinese
Produce an imaginative piece in written or spoken form.	journal entry or spoken personal account or short story

Note: In addition students will be required to sit an end-of-semester examination.

Reproduced by permission of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, Victoria, Australia. Web Address www.vcaa.vic.edu.au