AP Chinese (Sem 2)

About This Course

This is the second semester of a two-semester course sequence. At this level, students continue their preparation for the Advanced Placement (AP) Chinese Language and Culture Exam. Students continue to develop their integrated skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, and will be guided to pay more attention to their usages in interactive daily life and formal settings. Meanwhile, students will deepen their knowledge of Chinese culture through Chinese history, Chinese literature and arts. Harvest Shouhuo is the primary textbook used in this course, along with other supplementary materials, such as AP practice test, Chinese stories, newspaper articles and video clips. The course engages the students in an exploration of both contemporary and historical Chinese, including topics as travelling, famous people and history, literature and arts. The course is delivered entirely online in Chinese. Students will acquire more sophisticated linguistic elements to increase their language abilities. Language skills are enhanced through interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational activities. Listening skills are developed during class discussions, listening exercise, watching video clips movies, etc. Reading skills are improved through various readings of essays and articles, newspaper articles, advertisements, biographies, plays, and poetry. Speaking skills are practiced through debates, pair and group discussions, acting from scripts and interview. Written strategies are introduced to guide students organizing the compositions; students practice the written skills through bi-weekly compositions. To help students get familiar with the test format, assignments designed in AP exam format and the previous AP exams are provided. Students are frequently assessed on character-handwriting skill, vocabulary usage, expressive abilities and listening and comprehension skill. In order to maintain the integrity of AP standards, all AP course midterm and final exams must be proctored. The course is delivered entirely online in Chinese.
Prerequisites: Fourth-year Chinese or equivalent level of Chinese with proficiency of 1600-2000 Chinese words as well as completion of AP Chinese (Sem 1)

Course Objectives: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to...

• Identify significant figures, events, and places in contemporary and historical Chinese culture, history, literature and arts
• Use more sophisticated linguistic elements to increase their language abilities
• Demonstrate spoken, written, and listening language skills through interpretive, interpersonal, and presentations, class discussions and listening exercises
• Demonstrate reading skills through the interpretation of essays and articles, newspaper articles, advertisements, biographies, plays, and poetry
• Demonstrate speaking skills through debates, paired and group discussions, simulations in the form of acting from scripts and responding to interviews
• Apply written strategies in organizing and writing bi-weekly compositions
• Demonstrate mastery of character-handwriting skills, vocabulary usage, expressive abilities and listening and comprehension skills

Course Outline:

Unit 4: Travel and Society

Unit 5: Famous People and History

Unit 6: Literature and Arts

Resources Included: Online lesson instruction and activities, opportunities to engage with a certified, online instructor and classmates, when appropriate, and online assessments to measure student performance of course objectives and readiness for subsequent academic pursuits.

Additional Costs: Students must purchase the following textbook. Note: this purchase comes with the textbook, a workbook, and an accompanying audio program.Xu Jialu, Chen Fu, Wang Ruojiang, Zhu Ruiping. Harvest Intermediate Chinese Textbook 2nd Edition. CENGAGE Learning, 2014.

Scoring System: Michigan Virtual does not assign letter grades, grant credit for courses, nor issue transcripts or diplomas. A final score reported as a percentage of total points earned will be sent to students upon completion of a course. Your school mentor is also able to access this score within the Student Learning Portal. Schools may use this score for conversion to their own letter grading system.

Time Commitment: Semester sessions are 18-weeks long: Students must be able to spend 1 or more hours per day in the course to be successful. Summer sessions are 10 weeks long: Students must be able to spend a minimum of 2 or more hours per day, or about 90 hours during the summer, for the student to be successful in any course. Trimester sessions are 12-weeks long: Students must be able to spend 1.5 or more hours per day in the course to be successful.

Technology Requirements: Students will require a computer device with headphones, a microphone, webcam, up-to-date Chrome Web Browser, and access to YouTube.

Ensure that your school or district network and device administrator whitelists online resources relevant to the course in which you are choosing to enroll. Ref., Michigan Virtual Course Whitelist

Please review the Michigan Virtual Technology Requirements.

Instructor Support System: For technical issues within your course, contact the Customer Care Center by email at CustomerCare@mivu.org or by phone at (888) 889-2840.

Instructor Contact Expectations: Students can use email or the private message system within the Student Learning Portal to access highly qualified teachers when they need instructor assistance. Students will also receive feedback on their work inside the learning management system. The Instructor Info area of their course may describe additional communication options.

Academic Support Available: In addition to access to a highly qualified, Michigan certified teacher, students have access to academic videos and outside resources verified by Michigan Virtual. For technical issues within the course, students can contact the Michigan Virtual Customer Care by email at customercare@michiganvirtual.org or by phone at (888) 889-2840.

Required Assessment: Online assessments consist of formative and summative assessments represented by computer-graded multiple choice, instructor-graded writing assignments including hands-on projects, model building and other forms of authentic assessments.

Technical Skills Needed: Basic technology skills necessary to locate and share information and files as well as interact with others in a Learning Management System (LMS), include the ability to:

• Download, edit, save, convert, and upload files
• Download and install software
• Use a messaging service similar to email
• Communicate with others in online discussion or message boards, following basic rules of netiquette
• Open attachments shared in messages
• Create, save, and submit files in commonly used word processing program formats and as a PDF
• Edit file share settings in cloud-based applications, such as Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides
• Save a file as a .pdf
• Copy and paste and format text using your mouse, keyboard, or an html editor’s toolbar menu
• Insert images or links into a file or html editor
• Search for information within a document using Ctrl+F or Command+F keyboard shortcuts
• Work in multiple browser windows and tabs simultaneously
• Activate a microphone or webcam on your device, and record and upload or link audio and/or video files
• Use presentation and graphics programs
• Follow an online pacing guide or calendar of due dates
• Use spell-check, citation editors, and tools commonly provided in word processing tool menus
• Create and maintain usernames and passwords

Additional Information: The official course descriptions for Advanced Placement courses and information about their exams are located on the College Board site at Course and Exam Descriptions.

Michigan Virtual prepares students in AP courses for the AP exam, but does not offer the exam test itself. It is the responsibility of the school or parent to register for a local administration of the AP exam.

There are required due dates in AP courses. The pacing of due dates in AP courses aligns to the completion of all lessons and required assignments and assessments prior to the national AP exam date related to this course title. The calendar of AP exam dates is published by the College Board (Exam Calendar).

Resource Books (Optional):
Yea-Fen Chen, Meng Yeh, Frances Yufen Lee Mehta, Mei-Ju Hwang, Yuanchao Meng, and Natasha Pierce. Chaoyue: Advancing in Chinese. Columbia University Press, 2010.
Shen, Yan. Barron’s AP Chinese Language and Culture 2nd Edition. Barron’s Educational Series, 2014.
Wei-ling Wu, Hain-lan Tsai, Shwu-Fen Lin, Lin Young, Vivian T. Yu. A Study Guide to the AP Chinese Language & Culture Test. The Far East Book Co., Ltd, 2013.
Bih-Hsya Hsieh, Sunny X.Yu. AP Chinese Language and Culture Simulated Tests. Nan Hai Publishing, 2013
Phyllis Zhang. Developing Chinese Fluency, CENGAGE Learning, 2009. Cheng & Hsui. Integrated Chinese Level 2 Part 2 Textbook (3rd Edition). CHENG & HSUI, 2010.