BEGINNING I
Chinese – Beginning I (Chinese I) Prerequisite: None Offered: All-genders; Full-year Beginning Chinese is designed for students with little or no experience in learning Chinese. Students develop the basic language skills in a cultural context by understanding and responding to structured social conversations. Starting with the introduction of the Chinese language system including Pinyin, tones, radicals and characters, this course focuses on students' production of simple sentences and brief paragraphs related to the topics of greeting, sharing personal information and preferences, introducing others, making plans and discussing school life. The corresponding cultural knowledge is introduced at appropriate intervals to enrich students' understanding of Chinese culture. Care is taken to create an authentic learning experience in reading, writing, speaking and listening in the online environment. Students improve their overall language proficiency through weekly interactions with their teacher and classmates, in addition to using a variety of internet resources and audio and video materials. Engaging activities include playing games, performing songs and tongue twisters, writing stories, collaborating for projects, taking virtual field trips and acting out roles in movies – we really do have a lot of fun! This course aligns with Cheng and Tsui’s Integrated Chinese Level I, lessons zero through six. By the end of Beginning Chinese I, students will be able to handle the basic functions with structured grammatical patterns in daily communication and gain a solid foundation for future learning. BEGINNING II
Chinese – Beginning II (Chinese II) Prerequisite: Successful completion of at least one year of high school Chinese Offered: All-genders; Full-year Beginning Chinese II students continue to improve their Chinese skills by using both structured and created language. Cultural connections are made at appropriate intervals to familiarize students with the Chinese-speaking world. Students learn to initiate and participate in daily communication, apply new vocabulary and more complex sentence patterns to fulfill the functions of expressing individual needs, describe circumstances, compare the similarities and differences of phenomenon, and demonstrate culturally contextualized understanding. Students improve character literacy, authentic language production and cultural competency. A variety of audio, visual and textual materials are carefully selected based on the interests and preferences of the students, which optimizes the effectiveness of the online personalized experience. This course aligns with Cheng and Tsui’s Integrated Chinese Level I, lessons six through 12. By the end of Beginning Chinese II, students will be able to write journals, compose short Chinese songs and rhymes, share about topics related to their school life, and produce refined language freely at the paragraph level on essential social communication. INTERMEDIATE I
Chinese – Intermediate I (Chinese III) Prerequisite: Successful completion of at least two years of high school Chinese Offered: All-genders; Full-year Intermediate Chinese I students develop their essential Chinese language skills while gaining a deeper understanding of Chinese culture through engaging with various audio, visual and textual materials to produce an increasingly authentic language application experience. The course is designed for students who have had at least two years of Chinese study and takes them into structured communication through comprehensive skill-enhancement with abundant task-based practical grammatical structures and sentence patterns. Students engage in group work, online seminars, real-time speaking practice and personalized learning packets to improve constructive conversation skills in Chinese. Students are highly encouraged to enjoy applying Mandarin and to make productive mistakes within the course. This course aligns with Cheng and Tsui’s Integrated Chinese Level I, lessons 11 through 20. By the end of this course, students will acquire substantive vocabulary and structures for creating essays, composing songs and rhymes, discussing written and audio primary sources, and presenting speeches that are related to a wide variety of popular topics. The goal is to be able to function successfully in daily life in a Chinese-speaking world. INTERMEDIATE II
Chinese – Intermediate II (Chinese III/IV) Prerequisite: Successful completion of either three years of high school Chinese, or two years of high school Chinese with an immersion experience Offered: All-genders; Full-year Intermediate Chinese II is a rigorous class that prepares students for AP® Chinese Language and Culture or Chinese V course the following year. Students develop language competencies, while building proficiency in applying Mandarin in a variety of real-life situations. The course builds through unrehearsed listening and reading texts, engaging essays, authentic projects and virtual field trips. Classroom discussions and debates are added sequentially so that students develop both communication and language learning strategies. A variety of audio, visual and textual materials are carefully selected based on the interests and preferences of the students to reflect the diversity of students' lives, school experience and personal/social issues. Students should be prepared for a range of collaborative and individual activities each week, including speaking in real time with each other and the instructor. This course aligns with Cheng and Tsui’s Integrated Chinese Level II, lessons 21 through 30. By the end of this course, students will able to relate past, present and future experiences to conduct complicated daily activities in Mandarin. ADVANCED
Advanced Chinese is recommended for students who have completed four or more years of Chinese but do not want to prepare for the AP® exam. Advanced Chinese provides deeper understanding and broader application of Chinese language and culture for advanced or heritage Chinese learners. This course focuses on applying Chinese language and cultural skills in real-world situations, and exploring a variety of topics in Chinese history, geography, music and arts, literature, daily life, and national and global issues. 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 the high language proficiency and cultural competency to compare, examine, evaluate and solve conflicts successfully. AP®
AP® Chinese Language and Culture provides deeper understanding and broader application of Chinese language and culture for advanced or heritage Chinese learners. This course focuses on applying Chinese language and cultural skills in real-world situations, and exploring a variety of topics in Chinese history, geography, music and arts, literature, daily life, and national and global issues. 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 the high language proficiency and cultural competency to compare, examine, evaluate and solve conflicts successfully. Students may select the AP® or Advanced Chinese track. AP® students are expected to delve deeper into the topics, take AP®-style assessments, and prepare for the AP® exam. Advanced Chinese is recommended for students who have completed four or more years of Chinese but do not want to prepare for the AP® exam. COURSE APPROVAL
This course is approved by: the NCAA and the University of California. Fully accredited with the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools & the Western Association of Schools and Colleges through December 1, 2025. MEET A TEACHER
|
One Schoolhouse Chinese Teachers
Xiaohong Teng
Foreign Languages Teacher BA Liaoning Normal University MA University of Colorado, Colorado Springs JianMin Luo
Foreign Languages Teacher BA Hunan Normal School MEd Seattle University |
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.