CHI - Chinese

Living in Beijing

Living in Beijing is an interactive hypermedia project that integrates the study of Chinese language and culture. The project, built on the Metamedia platform, attempts to showcase Beijing’s current transformation in the context of urbanization, globalization, and the transition to capitalism. To this end, the socio-economic and cultural aspects of ordinary people’s lives in the Asian Games Village (AGV) community, located in the northeast of the city, have been chosen as the focus of the hypermedia archive. To present life in Beijing in action, the project contains footage of recreational programs and street scenes, in addition to one-on-one interviews. Students will therefore be exposed to the Chinese language as used in various culturally authentic settings.
When finished, Living in Beijing will have two main components: a Metamedia archive and a web site with interactive maps and links to external web sites. The archival materials will provide the students with an authentic picture of contemporary life in Beijing, whereas the web site will guide the students to the wealth of on-line resources related to these topics.
Living in Beijing is geared towards high-intermediate-level and advanced-level Chinese learners, including heritage learners. The classes will have theme-based units that focus on Beijing’s current socio-economic and cultural transformation.

Business Chinese Teaching Material Development

Generation in Change

The website will consist of 100 video segments plus difficult words, phrases and grammar points culled from these segments. The material will allow our students to study the influences of social change and economic development on the values, morals, and daily life of Chinese students their age as well as the consequent changes to their philosophies of life and their educational experience. Additionally, the material will give our students the opportunity to study the experience of Chinese parents and grandparents regarding these topics before and after the open door policy when China shifted its attitude to the rest of the world as well as reveal the attitudes of the older generations towards the younger generation’s changes.
The website will be a rich resource, giving our students a variety of things to explore. Our students will engage video and other media to develop their interpretations and understanding of Chinese culture, modern society, economics, and family relations. Our students will be able to save the visual materials needed in folders for their own research, projects, papers, and presentations.

Advanced Chinese Reader

Development of a reader for fourth-year Chinese intended to meet students' interests in many different genres, topics, and periods of modern Chinese prose.

Form-focused Jeopardy Games for Business Chinese

This project aims to develop 20 sets of form-focused exercises in the format of the Jeopardy Games using Microsoft word and PowerPoint for the in-class use of Business Chinese (CHIN 382) in the spring semester. There entail two goals for this project: 1) to provide the opportunities for students to focus on linguistic forms in an engaging manner; 2) to prepare students linguistically so that they can perform the uncoming meaning-focused tasks more accurately, fluently and appropriately.

International Conference on the Local Languages and Local Cultures of China

International conference on the local languages and local cultures of China.

Web-Based Essays for Heritage Learners

Development of a Web-based intermeidate reader of modern Chinese essays for heritae learners. In collaboration wth Qin Hong Anderson.

Modern China: Life, Language, and Culture

Revision of text developed in 1998 to add a full phonetic typescript and a more inclusive vocabulary list.

Commercial Chinese Online (Stage 1)

Creation of a Web site for commercial Chinese. Click here to view site.

Advanced Chinese Reader (cont.)

Editing of advanced reader.