Elementary Chinese
The elementary class is designed for students with no or minimal knowledge of Chinese. The class uses a communicative approach to engage students in the learning process. Students are introduced to the Chinese pronunciation system (pinyin), basic grammar, and commonly-used Chinese characters. A typical day starts with a quiz that functions as a warm up for the presentation of new materials. After learning and practicing new materials, students engage in functional and communicative activities, such as dialogues, role-plays, and presentations, to practice listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The focus is to improve students' overall ability to understand and use the language accurately and appropriately. During the summer session, classes are 5 hours a day, Monday through Friday with 2-4 hours of required homework daily.

Intermediate Chinese
The intermediate class is designed for students with at least one year of recent college-level Chinese studies. Specifically, students should have the ability to understand and participate in questions and answers of everyday situation, to read and write sentences and short paragraphs on simple topics, have knowledge of basic sentence structures, and the ability to read and write, at least, 400-500 most commonly used Chinese characters. Students are required to take a placement test at the start of the program. Placement is determined by students' language proficiency level, not the length of their previous studies.

The class uses a communicative approach to engage students in the learning process. A typical day starts with a quiz that functions as a warm up for the presentation of new materials. After learning and practicing new materials, students often engage in interactive and functional activities, such as dialogues, role plays, problem solving, and presentations to practice listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The instruction is designed to improve students' overall ability to understand and use the language accurately and appropriately.During the summer session, classes are 5 hours a day, Monday through Friday with 2-4 hours of required homework daily.

Advanced Chinese
The Chinese advanced-level course is a content-driven course designed to provide students with the skills necessary to function effectively in both academic and professional environments. By the end of the program, students should achieve a level of proficiency that will enable them to express facts and opinions, and engage in discussion on a broad range of topics related to Chinese society, culture, politics, history and other revelevant content. This course will help students understand both formal and informal speech patterns, gather important information from news reports and interviews from radio and television broadcasts, read on-line news releases, and comprehend the main gist from short book chapters and other authentic reading materials. Finally, this program should improve students' ability to write in Chinese.Upon completition of the program, students should be able to reproduce at least 2000 Chinese characters, use computers to type an essay in Chinese, and produce handwritten assignments ranging from 500-1000 words.

Textbooks Overview

The Monterey Institute does not have a bookstore on campus. Therefore, it is necessary to purchase your text books before you arrive.We highly recommend that you order your texts online through the vendor of your choice before the SILP sesson begins. Textbooks may take 3-4 weeks to arrive, so you may be half-way through the program before you receive them. If you are unsure of your level, please use your score from the diagonistic test as a guide. Or, you may want to purchase both books and send one back after the session begins.


ELEMENTARY CHINESE

Required:  Students may study either Simplified or Traditional.

Simplified - Recommended if you haven't worked with Traditional
1. Integrated Chinese, Level 1, Part 1, 2nd Ed. Simplified (9780887275333)
2. Workbook, 2nd Ed. Simplified (9780887274626)
3. Integrated Chinese, Level 1, Part 2, Expanded 2nd Ed. Simplified (9780887275326)
4. Workbook, 2nd Ed. Simplified (9780887274787)

Traditional
1. Integrated Chinese, Level 1, Part 1, 2nd Ed. Traditional (9780887275814)
2. Workbook, 2nd Ed. Traditional (9780887274619)
3. Integrated Chinese, Level 1, Part 2,  Expanded 2nd Ed. Traditional (9780887275821)
4. Workbook, 2nd Ed. Traditional (9780887274794)

Also Required:
1. Audio CDs, 2nd Ed. Individual (4) (9780887274671)
2. Workbook DVD, Individual (9780887274275)

Optional: Character Workbook, 2nd Ed. Traditional and Simplified (9780887274398)

Required:
1. Audio CDs for Integrated Chinese Level 2; ISBN: 0-887-27472-2
2. Audio CDs for Integrated Chinese Level 2; ISBN: 0-887-27472-2