New Course in the Chinese Language Now Offered at Immaculata University
Beginning with the Fall 2005 semester, students at Immaculata University may enroll in the new foreign language course Elementary Chinese I with instructor Judy Lee, MS, a native speaker.
"We are very excited about the new offering in Mandarin Chinese at Immaculata. Everything we know about globalization and the world economy tells us that knowledge of the Chinese languages and cultures will be very important in the years to come. We are happy to be able to give our students this unique opportunity," comments Kathleen Clark, chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Immaculata.
Elementary Chinese provides fundamentals of spoken and written Mandarin Chinese including proficiency development in basic skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The emphasis for this course is on building a solid foundation in pronunciation, and building up vocabulary and sentence patterns in communicative contexts. Students will acquire basic communicative skills in the context of useful daily conversations, and will be expected to read and write all new words that appear in vocabulary lists in the textbook. In-class laboratory work is also part of the class.
The U.S. State Department has designated Chinese a "critical language." Chinese is spoken by 1.3 billion people worldwide. In American homes, Chinese has eclipsed French, German, and Italian to become the third most commonly spoken language, after English and Spanish.
Judy Lee comments on the importance of learning Chinese, "Considering China´s ever-increasing economic and cultural influence in the global arena, students who
understand the Chinese language and the Chinese culture will have a distinct advantage in the future."
During her career, Judy Lee has taught Chinese at Conestoga High School, Bryn Mawr College, Main Line Chinese School, and Ithan and Wayne elementary schools´ after-school language program. She began her teaching career as a 9th grade teacher of Physical Science in Taiwan. After moving to the United States, she served as a teaching assistant in the Physics Department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. From 1978 to 1983, she returned to Taiwan where she was a research engineer at the Taiwan Power Company and concurrently served as an adjunct lecturer in Physics at Fu-Jen Catholic University. For two years, she was a teaching assistant in the Physics Department at Drexel University.
This course will benefit a student who is interested in using Mandarin to complement other academic interests and career objectives such as International Business, Asian History, and Foreign Affairs among others.
Immaculata University, a Catholic, coeducational institution, is located 20 miles west of Philadelphia, south of the intersection of routes 30 and 352, between Paoli and Exton.
z:word: release: Chinese I Course #9