Comments from students
International students participated in the video shooting
Excerpt from the course taught by Prof. Zhang Yanli (right)
Shanghai International Studies University's "Communicative Chinese for Beginners" MOOC will launch its third run on September 7, 2020, together on the International MOOC platform FutureLearn and China University's MOOC platform.
During the first two runs, over 26,000 learners from more than 150 countries participated in these three courses. Due to the Novel Coronavirus pneumonia (Covid-19) outbreak, an unprecedented educational interruption has occurred, affecting at least 1.5 billion students worldwide. Under the epidemic situation, the international Chinese education has benefited from the elite resources provided by the second run of "Communicative Chinese for Beginners" MOOC. In the meantime, it has provided valuable online learning materials for both Chinese language teachers and learners worldwide, and was even selected as a compulsory part for the Chinese language curriculum of a Mexico International High School. The course teachers and teaching assistants also participated in the interactive learning throughout the whole course, which won unanimous praise from the learners.
This series of courses led by Professor Zhang Yanli and Associate Professor Li Qianping from the SISU School of Chinese Studies and Exchange includes three sub-courses: Chinese Pronunciation and Tone, Conversation, and Grammar. The course is learner-centered and conducted in the form of teacher-student interaction. In addition, international students from different countries were invited to participate in the recording of the course.
The "Introduction to Chinese – Pronunciation" is a three-week course, mainly designed for beginners of Chinese language. The course is taught in English and it teaches Chinese Pinyin, phonetic training methods, and common daily language.
Course link：https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/chinese-pronunciation-tone/3
"Introduction to Chinese- Conversation" is a six-week course, based on HSK level 1 and 2 vocabularies and grammar. The course teaches daily language, covering six topics such as "Asking for Directions" and "Ordering Meals", enabling the learners to master basic daily conversation and communicate in Chinese.
Course link：https://www.futurelearn.com/admin/courses/chinese-conversation/3
"Introduction to Chinese- Grammar" course lasts four weeks, designed for learners with a certain foundation in Chinese. The course teaches basic grammar including keywords and sentence patterns such as "dou"（"都"），"bi"（"比"）, "shi……de"("是……的"). It helps learners discover and understand the grammatical rules of basic Chinese and improve their ability to accurately express themselves with the use of grammatical knowledge in context.
Course Link：https://www.futurelearn.com/admin/courses/chinese-grammar/3
In the post-epidemic era, the "Communicative Chinese for Beginners" MOOC will continously support the Chinese online education, explore classroom transformation models, serve every Chinese enthusiast, contribute to the spread of Chinese language and culture, as well as support the China's MOOC to achieve a prominent level!
