Chinese Character Writing

Course Description

Description

This fun course covers 109 different Chinese characters, including basic principles, the characters' evolution, stroke order, radicals, and writing structure. In this six-week course, each character is introduced with careful display of strokes, followed by its pronunciation as well as how the character is being used within a sentence. In addition, an explanation of its composition, the radical, meaning, and pinyin is addressed. The character configuration and stroke order are fully explained, along with other tips to help students with the drawing. Each character is provided with several grid-lines to allow students to practice their writing.

The basic principles of the creation of Chinese characters, such as pictographs, indicatives, ideographs and phonetic compounds, along with their evolution, stroke orders, radicals, and writing structure, will be introduced. Besides the writing portion, this course will also strengthen and broaden a student's Chinese vocabulary. Practical exercises includes fill-in-the-blanks exercises for students to manipulate with the character. The fill-in grid papers can be downloaded from www.bluejay.cty.jhu.edu . Each character has a writing sample following the stroke order.

Students meet the instructor once every other week (a total of three times) via Adobe Connect. These sessions are recorded for future review. The instructor leads the conversation by using related phrases associated with characters. However, students are still free to study at their own pace and leisure.

Materials Required

A microphone and headphones are required for this course.

Detailed Course Information

Course Details

Week 1

Lesson 1: Twenty characters (Study by yourself)
Interactive online class with instructor and other students

Week 2

Lesson 2:Twenty characters (Study by yourself)

Week 3

Lesson 3:Twenty characters (Study by yourself)
Interactive online class with instructor and other students

Week 4

Lesson 4:Twenty characters (Study by yourself)

Week 5

Lesson 5:Twenty characters (Study by yourself)

Week 6

Lesson 6: Review and Final (Online class)
Interactive online class with instructor and other students

Students need to master twenty new characters per week. The twenty characters will be divided into four groups containing five characters each. Each group will be followed by two multiple-choice questions.

System Requirements

CTYOnline courses require a properly-maintained computer with Internet access and a recent-version web browser (such as Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer). Students are expected to be familiar with standard computer operations (e.g. login, cut & paste, email attachments, etc).

This course makes use of online audio communication. Broadband internet access, a microphone, and headphones are required.

CTYOnline Foreign Language - Comments and Feedback from Students, Parents, and Teachers

Reviews

Quotes:

"My son is really enjoying the course. He's been trying to teach his sister, my wife, and me Chinese words and phrases. Yesterday, he was telling all of us how to have entire conversations. I'm impressed by how much he's learned over a short period of time and plan for him to continue studying Chinese through Johns Hopkins. He also likes the interaction with the instructor and the other students over the computer."

"At breakfast this morning, my daughter was using Chinese to tell me about banks and banking, this week's lesson. She got very excited at the realization that she was for the first time thinking in Chinese, not English. It was just for an instant, but nevertheless a happy development. Thank you for helping my child learn so much."

“I enjoy the course very much. The individual attention during class makes it a very enjoyable hour, and the friendliness and relaxed atmosphere make class something to look forward to each week. I can’t wait to continue with the next level!”