Conversational Chinese I
This is a half-semester course intended to build up students’ basic conversational skills in Chinese. Pinyin, a romanization of Chinese, is the tool for understanding of the dialogs from the textbook. The students will learn basic conversational skills like introducing themselves, talking about their family and gaining and providing important information like age, grade and nationality, etc. Class instruction emphasizes situational activities and performances.
    It is not part of GE approved foreign language sequence and it is not applicable for FLIP credit.
    Conversational Chinese II
This is also a half-semester course and it is a continuation of 039:001. The completion of 039:001 is preferred but not a must. Anyone who has a good command of Pinyin system and possess the basic Chinese communication skills, can enroll for this course. Students will expand the conversational skill to making an appointment, talking about their schedules, doing shopping, and expressing preferences.
    It is not part of GE approved foreign language sequence and it is not applicable for FLIP credit.
    First Year Chinese
The purpose of this course is to lay a groundwork for the study of modern Chinese. The course will provide instruction in all four language skills of aurally understanding, speaking, reading and writing. While the learning of sentence patterns is a major component of the course, efforts will be made to help students handle simple tasks such as discussing daily routines, asking for and giving simple directions, shopping, talking on the phone, reading and writing notes and letters. Activities designed for the course include both deductive and inductive lectures on grammatical constructions and cultural conventions as they relate to the language. In addition, intensive drills on sounds and tones, vocabulary, and sentence patterns in meaningful contexts will be used in order for the students to communicate appropriately and accurately in authentic contexts. Both pedagogically prepared texts and authentic materials including a wide variety of realia will be used in this course. For the reading and writing tracks, emphasis will be placed on the acquisition of character recurring components in order to systematically improve students' Chinese orthographic awareness. A daily grading system will be employed.
Second Year Chinese
This course will help students expand from their base in first year Chinese (or its equivalent) to continue to develop their four skills of aurally understanding, speaking, reading and writing. Many of the grammatical constructions introduced in first year Chinese will be repeated in this course with increasing sophistication in terms of style and usage. While many of the linguistic tasks students will learn to handle are similar to those of first year Chinese, the level of language required to carry out these tasks is more advanced. In this course students are required to comprehend and produce paragraph-level Chinese. Rigorous practice of spoken and written Chinese in complex communicative activities will be conducted. Students will also do intensive reading of expository writings on a variety of cultural topics. A daily grading system will be employed.
Intermediate Chinese I
    This course is designed for students who have successfully completed the First-Year Chinese (039:008/009) and one summer Chinese study in China (earn a grade of C or above or the equivalent). The course will help students continue to develop their four skills of aurally understanding, speaking, reading and writing in Chinese at intermediate level. In this course students are required to comprehend and produce paragraph-level Chinese. Rigorous practice of spoken and written Chinese in complex communicative activities will be conducted. Students will also do intensive reading of expository writings on a variety of cultural topics. A daily grading system will be employed. 
    Intermediate Chinese II
This course is designed for students who have successfully completed 039:107: Intermediate Chinese I (with a grade of C or above or the equivalent). The course will continue to develop the four skills of aurally understanding, speaking, reading and writing in Chinese. In this course students are required to comprehend and produce paragraph-level Chinese with high accuracy and fluency. By the end of this course, students are expected to deal with daily-life related Chinese in a target language environment with no difficulty. A daily grading system will be employed. 
Third Year Chinese
This course is designed for students who have completed two years of college-level training in Chinese to continue to develop their skills of aurally understanding, speaking, reading and writing. A textbook is selected that helps students improve their understanding of today's China and ensures that students continue to improve their linguistic skills with a manageable degree of challenge. A multi-media textbook is also used to integrate all skills. At the functional level, this course aims at helping students solidify their ability to comprehend and produce paragraph-level Chinese. It seeks to enable students to understand face-to-face conversations on most familiar topics, give factual accounts, read materials written in formal shumianyu Chinese and write simple essays, reports and all types of correspondence. A daily grading system will be employed.
Fourth Year Chinese
In this course, reading will be used as an integrated skill for other skills. Students will read rigorously both literary and non-literary texts on a wide range of topic areas related to current events, social sciences, history, and literature. Elaborate discussions on the reading materials will be conducted regularly to develop students' skills of abstract reasoning, narration and description. There will be a weekly writing assignment based on materials covered in class.
Fifth Year Chinese
This course is designed to help students 1) to continue to improve their modern Chinese skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and 2) to develop the skill to read authentic texts related to the students' topics of interests. For general modern Chinese proficiency improvement, students will read rigorously both literary and non-literally texts on a wide range of topic areas related to current events, social sciences, and the humanities. Discussions of the reading materials will be conducted regularly to develop students' skills in modern Chinese at a professional level. There will be a bi-weekly writing assignment based on materials covered in class.
Classical Chinese
This course introduces students who have had two years of Mandarin to the grammar and lexicon of late Zhou classical Chinese. In the first semester the Zhanguoce is used as the basic text. A lecture format is employed. In the second semester, students are asked to prepare texts for translation in class. Readings are selected from Mengzi, Mozi, Xunzi, Hanfeizi, and Zhuangzi. Special emphasis is placed on grammatical analysis, and a thorough review of the grammar presented in the first semester is undertaken.
Advanced Classical Chinese
This one-semester course introduces students to texts of the mid and early classical periods. Readings are from the Zuozhuan, Kuoyu, and Lunyu. The basic classical
Literary Chinese I
This course offers readings from earlier literary and historical texts, ranging from the Han to the Six Dynasties periods. The basic classical Chinese courses are pre-requisites.
Early Chinese Vernacular Texts
This course offers readings in texts thought to represent vernacular Chinese of various periods. It begins with late Han and Three Kingdoms Buddhist translations and then moves through Dunhuang documents to various materials representative of early modern koines. The basic classical Chinese courses are pre-requisites.