The Cactus Course Outlines provide a learning framework for the Cactus Foreign Language Evening Courses. They are designed to provide you with a good idea of what you might cover over a 10-week period, and include typical themes, grammar and vocabulary fields. They are flexible rather than prescriptive, in that our teachers may decide to adapt their learning plans to the specific level, aims and interests of their classes. Use the tabs below to view the relevant Chinese Mandarin course outline for your level.
Mandarin Beginner 1
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Intro to Pinyin-Chinese phonetics system
- Greetings in normal and polite ways
- Introduce self, introduce others
- Talking about oneself
- Likes & dislikes
- Taking a taxi
- Asking about directions
- Expressing time, days and counting numbers from 0-100
- Shopping, asking about prices, sizes and colours
- Buying tickets for travel; start with “qing wen 请问”
- Talking about jobs, company and business etiquette.
- Asking for help
Grammar:
- Basic sentences with to be “shi是”, to have “you有” and to do “zuo做”
- Sentences with stative verb (hen, 我很好)
- Past, and the situation has changed with a functional marker “le”
- Pronouns – subject “wo我”, plural form 我们，你们， 他们
- possessive word “de的”
- Auxiliary words e.g. “xiang 想”
- Word order in sentences (Chinese sentence orders, difference between English and Chinese)
- Sentence forms – statement, question and negative
- Measure words (e.g. a cup of tea = “yi bei cha” 一杯茶 )
- Particles with “ba 吧” “ma吗”
Cultural Content:
- Various forms of Chinese
- Lucky/unlucky numbers
- Hand shaking
- Business card
- China tea
- Politeness in Chinese language (different modal words)
Skills Work:
- Extensive practice of Pinyin and tones
- eading phonetics/ Pinyin skills
- Focus on Pinyin, characters are optional
- Listening practice (short simple sentences)
- Recognizing reading a few simple characters
- Memorize some frequently used short sentences.
Mandarin Beginner 2
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Talking about day, date, month and year.
- Ordering drinks in a pub or restaurant
- Asking where somebody is from (country and city)
- Describing one’s own things (a bag, a mobile phone, etc)
- Asking for information about public transport (bus, tube, train..)
- Ordering food in a restaurant (from entering a restaurant to paying the bill)
- Arranging an appointment with somebody (time and location)
- Making enquiries when shopping (size, colour of clothes, looking for fitting room )
- Communicating with Chinese people at the dinner table (propose a toast, give compliments, etc)
Grammar:
- Emphasize Chinese sentence order (put time and location words in front of the verb—Time+Location+Action)
- Emphasize measure words (一杯，一个，difference between 一星期 and 一个星期)
- Past and future with time words “zuo tian昨天” & “ming tian明天”
- Question words: ma, shenme, nar, shenme defang, shenme shihou, zenme, ji, duoshao.
- Chinese sentences with two words (Subject + verb1+verb2)
- Emphasize possessive word ‘de’
- Learn a large variety of sentence patterns according to textbook.
- Focus on sentence patterns instead of grammar (the importance of memorizing sentence patterns in learning Chinese)
Cultural Content:
- Chinese calendar
- Chinese dishes and staple food/ 讲一讲菜和饭的区别
- Various celebrations, e.g. Chinese New Year
- Major dialects in Chinese language
- Modesty, e.g. “na li哪里, na li哪里”
Skills Work:
- Lots of Pinyin and tones practice (reading and listening)
- Recognising simple characters (10-20 characters)
- Improve intonation via practising drills and sentence patterns
- Self-learning skills (using dictionary and online websites)
- ractise and memorise frequently used short daily life sentences and frequently used sentence patterns.
Mandarin Beginner 3
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Review & practise previous level vocabulary (e.g. through dialogue creation)
- Ask someone for help (talk to customer service)
- Learn how to book a room in a hotel and other related hotel language
- Learn to describe physical uncomfortableness and illness; how to talk to a doctor
- Conversation in a post office
- Pay compliments, praise somebody else
- Make an apology in different situations (being late, forget things, unable to finish a task..)
- Express gratitude formally and informally in different situations
- Pay a compliment, ask for compensation.
- Arrange an appointment formally and informally.
Grammar:
- Review & practise previous level grammar (e.g. through mixed tense work – present/past/future)
- Difference between 或者 and 还是
- Difference between two negative words: 不 and 没有
- Complement of degree construction : Sentence structure V+de+hen+adj (做得很好，说得很不错)
- 好吗 and 好不好 / 行吗 and 行不行
- Sentence structure with 怎么
Cultural Content:
- Compliments in Chinese culture
- Medical system in China
- Table manners
- Customs of celebration, e.g. special food for Chinese New Year
- Famous Chinese Kong Fu movies
Skills Work:
- Pronunciation – key sounds practice
- Lots of speaking and listening practice
- Memorize longer frequently used daily life Chinese sentences.
- Longer oral presentation
- Recognising characters and writing common characters practice
- Self-learning skills (using dictionary and online websites)
Mandarin Elementary 1
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Talking about one’s capability, writing simple sentences in CV
- Refuse an invitation and express regrets
- Agree or disagree, give others permission
- Make a telephone call and leave a message for somebody
- Make a request for a refund or an exchange in a shop
- Make an excuse to leave earlier in different situations
- Bargains in shopping
- Ask for services in a bank (exchange money, transfer money..)
- Saying goodbye in different situations
Grammar:
- Review & practise previous level grammar (e.g. sentence order and tenses)
- Difference between能 and会
- Words about permission and refusal, agree and disagree可以，不可以，能，不能
- Present continuous e.g. “zheng zai正在”
- Adverbs “cai才” and “jiu就”
- Conditional clause “yao shi要是…jiu就…”
- Understanding potential verb phrases with “de得/bu不”
- Attributive clause with “de的”
Cultural Content:
- Chinese characters
- Bargaining in China
- Money system
- Chinese idioms and proverbs
- Telephone call etiquette
Skills Work:
- Pronunciation and intonation practice
- eading short essay practice
- Writing common characters practice
- Translating from Chinese to English, and vice versa
- Improve fluency by practising situational dialogues
- Improve presentation skills
Mandarin Elementary 2
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Talking about one’s life in a new place.
- Invite somebody to do something and arrange an appointment
- Describe somebody, something or an event
- Stop somebody doing something and give permission to somebody to do something
- Remind people to do something
- Request someone to hurry up politely
- Express satisfaction and make a complaint about a bad service.
- Give your opinion or suggestion to someone
- Ask directions and give directions
- Give reasons or explain people’s questions
Grammar:
- Chinese words describing approximation (两三次，八九岁，二十多岁，)
- Words and phrases for pre-condition: 如果， 如果….的话，如果….就
- Sentences with ‘把’ and its difference with sentences with ‘被’
- Re-cap the usage of ‘的’ to emphasize past. For example: 我是坐车来的。他是六点走的。
- Adverbs “就” to make an emphasis. 我一会儿就去。
- Re-cap the usage of ‘过’ indicating something experienced. 我看过/吃过/
- Different patterns of duplication of a verb to indicate to do something quickly. 看看, 看一看，看一下
- Linking words : 因为….所以/ 虽然….但是 Emphasize its difference from English.
Cultural content:
- Chinese characters
- Chinese geography and minorities, Minority issues can be different from western countries’ concepts
- Invitation (polite form of words)
- Buying medicines in China
- Lucky numbers in China
- Directions concept in China (dong nan xi bei)
Skills Work:
- Pronunciation practice
- Enlarge vocabulary quickly (more supplementary materials)
- Improve skills in speaking longer Chinese sentences
- Translating from Chinese to English, and vice versa
- Speaking out one’s thoughts and giving opinions
- Improve presentation skills in Chinese in different business contexts
Mandarin Elementary 3
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Express certainty and uncertainty about an issue
- Choose a mobile phone and a service package
- Express feeling odd or surprised about something you heard
- Express worries and learn to comfort others
- Make an apology or forgive someone
- Make a compliment and respond to other’s compliment with modesty
- Express one’s doubt
Grammar:
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- Three ‘de’s in Chinese, 的 得 地
- Learn comparative forms: 更， 越来越
- Comparision: A +bi 比+B+adj+number For example: 我比他大两岁。
- How to indicate an action in progress: 在 ，正在，着
- Re-cap sentences with ‘把’。 把….给…
- Re-cap different tenses in Chinese grammar
Cultural Content:
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- Chinese characters
- Chinese banking services
- Travelling in China
- Chinese holidays
- Chinese property market and Chinese people’s concept of “home”
- China’s business development
Skills Work:
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- Improve intonation and speaking fluency
- Enlarge vocabulary quickly (more supplementary materials)
- Listen to Chinese audio, video materials
- Improve communication skills
- Improve presentation skills in Chinese in different business contexts
Mandarin Advanced
Topics & Vocabulary:
At this level, the teaching will be tailored to meet students’ demands to improve their command of Chinese language. Teachers will be helping students to enlarge their vocabulary and help them to express their ideas in a higher level of spoken Chinese.
Topic oriented teaching: In class, teacher will add a large variety of topics into teaching, such as entertainment, media, business, education, school life, cities, people, relationships, the arts, technology, social life, night life, national traditions/customs & culture, globalization, etc. Original multimedia materials such as Chinese video and audio will be added in teaching.
Students are encouraged to repeat what they read, listened and watched with the guidance and support from teacher. Meanwhile, with teacher’s guidance, students are also encouraged to have a deeper discussion about current issues.
Students are required to write longer articles about their daily life stories and their view of the world.
Presentation skills: Teacher will help students to organise longer presentation with different professional topics that students are interested in.
Students will have intensive practise in class to improve their listening, speaking, reading and presentation skills.
Mandarin Proficiency
Topics & Vocabulary:
In this level, the teaching will be tailored to meet students’ specific demands in their professional development and language command. Teachers will be helping students to enlarge their vocabulary and help them to express their ideas in a very high level of professional Chinese.
Students will be playing a major role in classroom, getting involved in a lot of discussion, debate and presentation practice.
News: With selections of current news stories about China, teacher organizes students to discuss and debate about China’s development, problems and roles in the world. Also discuss about the cultural differences between the East and the West.
Videos: Students will have opportunity to watch up-to-date Chinese TV plays, shows to experience real life Chinese language. (Classroom should have white board or multimedia equipment.)
Reports: Students are required to do research and write short reports about current issues, such as politics, economy, culture and environment.
Professional presentation: Students are required to deliver formal and longer presentations in Chinese in their preferred area, such as finance, business, law, media, management and science. Teacher will help students find out their weaknesses and common mistakes.
Students will have intensive practise in class to improve their listening, speaking, reading and presentation skills to meet a professional demand.
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