AP® Chinese Language & Culture - Heritage Speakers

All-Gender Course; Prerequisite - Chinese heritage background or successful completion of at least three years of high school Chinese with an immersion experience; ​Full-year course
COURSE DESCRIPTION
AP® Chinese Language and Culture – Heritage Speakers is designed for Chinese heritage students or second language learners with sound listening comprehension skills. The course will deepen students’ immersion into the language and culture of the Chinese-speaking world and challenge students to use language as a means to study different disciplines and topics, rather than just the language itself. Focusing on the six themes of families and communities, personal and public identities, beauty and aesthetics, science and technology, contemporary life, and global challenges, the course asks students use teamwork, group online seminars, one-on-one conferences with the teacher, and a variety of engaging activities and experiential projects to meet individual needs. Students gain high language proficiency and cultural competency to compare, examine, evaluate, and solve conflicts successfully. Students are expected not only to delve deeply into the topics but also to take diagnostic AP®-style assessments and prepare for the AP® Chinese Language and Culture Exam.
WHAT STUDENTS SAY

AP® Chinese Language & Culture - Heritage Speakers is a new course for 21/22 school year at One Schoolhouse. To read what students have said about other One Schoolhouse courses, visit our What Students Say webpage and be sure to read what students have said about other courses in our Chinese stand at One Schoolhouse here!​

WHAT STUDENTS DO
Learning is an active process at One Schoolhouse. Students design, create and apply. And, they engage with classmates and connect with their teachers through discussions, video conferences, and projects. Specifically, in this class students will:
  • Set goals that drive their learning. Students reflect regularly on their growth, and meet on video chat with their online teacher to review progress towards their goals.
  • Have choice in how they learn new content and practice new skills. Students are given agency to determine the best ways for them to learn.
  • Apply what they are learning to the real world. Learning is meaningful and connects to concepts outside the classroom.
  • Practice constructive engagement in a diverse and changing world. Students interact with classmates from across the country and around the world.
  • Gain academic maturity. Online learning takes greater discipline and independence than a traditional face-to-face classroom. Teachers support students to build this skill.
MEET A TEACHER FOR THIS COURSE
SIGNATURE ACTIVITIES
Examples of signature activities and projects for this course are:
  • Group Online Seminar: GOS focuses on gaining strategies and diagnostic review. Students meet with the teacher to learn tested strategies and improve efficiently and effectively, including how to write like a native, how to comprehend unknown vocabulary, etc.  The teacher collects and identifies mistake patterns, reviews with students and shares good examples.
  • Mini-teach: Teaching is the best way to learn. Mini-teach expands student vocabulary and enhances mastery of specific grammar and structures. Students work on the content they find challenging and share their successful experience by videos with each other.
  • Study Buddy and Chinese Corner: Study Buddy and Chinese Corner activities are used throughout the year to provide abundant opportunities for students to improve unrehearsed communication skills daily, including interviews, collaborative projects and free style talking.
  • Personalized Learning Packet: Detailed PLP’s are provided throughout the course to maximize the support of a wide variety of skills. Students choose the specific activities to reinforce individual language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing by authentic materials.  ​
​OUR RESEARCH-BASED APPROACH TO TEACHING LANGUAGES ONLINE
​One Schoolhouse designs competency-based courses with the student-teacher relationship as the cornerstone of our personalized pedagogy.  While students excel in our language AP courses, for many years we did not offer full sequence language courses because there was little research to support the efficacy of online language learning at the early levels.  The research shows that fewer than 1% of Americans are proficient in the language they studied in traditional classrooms. Not wanting this outcome for One Schoolhouse students, our goal is to inspire deep learning so we strive to ensure that the online learning experience increases the effectiveness of second language acquisition. In recent years, we have honed our approaches to delivering the four language competencies – reading, writing, listening, and speaking – in the online space, and have therefore endeavored to build out our Chinese, French, and Latin sequences.  The limitations of other online language programs are mitigated by the centrality of the student-teacher relationship, including interactive sessions where students speak, listen, and translate with their peers and teacher, at One Schoolhouse.  J.C. Narcy-Combes’s research on second language learning online shows that, “meaningful interaction will trigger learning processes,” which we know to be true anecdotally, and that, with intentional design, students can be taught to learn language effectively online.  Carrier et. al. have more recently shown that educational technologies and online learning are rapidly transforming second language acquisition, and that intentional practice can create a highly effective digital experience.  Because One Schoolhouse students have pathway options where they can practice in the target language at their own pace, get feedback from their teacher, interact with peers from around the country, and demonstrate their mastery through both traditional assessments and creative projects, students have the full complement of research-based learning activities in their online courses that you would expect to find in any independent school language program.  Additionally, our language teachers have advanced degrees from American universities, are trained in both their language and the best pedagogical practices for delivering language online, teach in independent schools around the US, and are AP readers.  
COURSE APPROVAL
One Schoolhouse is fully accredited with the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges through December 1, 2025; we are an approved online publisher for the University of California. ​
JianMin Luo
Foreign Languages Teacher
BA Hunan Normal University
MEd Seattle University