CHIN 110: Advanced Mandarin

ZCCM/LCCM • Productive • Requiring

First Impressions

In my previous experience, I was aware that the cost of course materials had impacts on students’ choice of courses as well as on their learning outcomes. I also tried myself to adopt low-cost or free materials for my courses. Through this FLC program, I have learned there are different pathways to adopt LCCM/ZCCM (i.e., adopt, remix, and create) and I can obtain help and assistance from the subject-matter expert librarians.

Benefits & Challenges

I took this FLC program to prepare the course (CHIN 110) that will be offered in Summer/Fall 2024. However, I also adopted ZCCM for the Intermediate Mandarin (CHIN2A) that I taught this semester. Below is the report from this semester.

Benefits/Challenges/Discoveries
Benefits of AL$/OERs	Challenges of AL$/OERs	Discoveries
Student response: Students enjoyed reading two Chinese folk stories and watching video clips which were available online and at no cost. Impact on your prep time: I chose the two stories online, adapted them to fit the students’ proficiency level and prepared vocab lists. Two pathways (adopt and remix) were involved.	Difficulty finding quality materials: It was not difficult finding the course materials. But adapting the stories and preparing vocab lists as well as designing it into group work was time consuming. The evaluation process included reading outcome, rewriting the story into a screenplay, group performance and students’ contributions to the group work.	What search terminology produced the best results? Since the two stories are popular Chinese folk stories, it is easy to find the text and video resources online.

Pathway:

This semester I chose to adopt and remix online course materials for my teaching. The selected course materials were available online, but the texts were too advanced for Intermediate students to read so I modified the two stories. In the meantime, to assist students to read the stories, I also created vocabulary lists and English translations.

Reflection on Resources:

I haven’t found any particularly useful resources for my Mandarin Chinese courses in general. But the website created by the editors of the textbooks that I chose for CHIN110 is very useful (https://www.mychineseclass.com/).

I had a pleasant and productive talk with our subject librarian, Hong Wang. Through our talk, I learned that the library currently didn’t carry a good number of materials in Mandarin learning and teaching. Hong suggested I provide a list of books or audio/video materials for library collection and course reserves in the future. But the Chinese movie database of the library can provide video/movie materials for advanced Mandarin courses.

Student Survey Data

Results
Data Point #1	Data Point #2	Data Point #3
“The impact of textbook costs is negligible. If cost becomes an issue, it is the students’ responsibility to voice it and let faculty know so that something can be arranged. Costs should not stop students from learning.”	“Most of the times the textbooks have been too expensive. It would take me a while to earn enough money to buy my school textbooks. The faculty should know that students have many classes that need them to buy textbook and the amount can build up. Many cannot afford them, since paying for the classes are already a hustle.”	“Textbooks are not only expensive but also heavy. If I can, I rather buy the PDF version or used version instead.”

Recommendations & Advice

I recommend working together with the subject librarian and searching useful resources from the library online and offline. I also recommend choosing e-textbooks from the Kindle store. If we need to remix and create new materials, it is necessary to set up a timeline as early as possible.

Faculty Biography

Faculty Bio
	Born and raised in China, I received my Ph.D. in Linguistics from Simon Fraser University in Canada. I have taught Chinese language and culture at universities in China, Thailand, Canada, and the United States. My published research articles are focused on Experimental Phonetics and Second Language Speech Acquisition.

**Program Sponsors**
	This work was supported by: Sacramento State Academic Affairs - Center for Teaching and Learning California State University Affordable Learning Solutions Program & SB 1359