Level I
At the end of HC’s Level I class, you should already have learned enough Chinese that communicating in Chinese is a rewarding, albeit challenging, undertaking.* Traveling to Beijing with a Chinese-speaking friend, you would find many situations in which you could use Chinese to exchange information with local residents to a degree that exceeded your expectations and reinforced your enthusiasm for Chinese study. For instance, meeting with acquaintances of your Chinese-speaking friend, you could engage in basic, polite conversation: you could deliver and understand greetings; talk about your family, interests, profession, and other basic facts; discuss weather; draw comparisons between your home country and that of your hosts; express preferences regarding such basic things as food and drink; discuss your trip in chronological sequence; and make basic comments (color, size, shape, etc) regarding physical objects. At this stage of learning, your interactions would be simple, but your communicative attempts would be successful provided your interlocutor allowed you time to create your message, spoke slowly and clearly, and was willing to repeat things from time to time. Students who remain at home are also likely to have found a rewarding experience in the classroom, struck by the range and diversity of messages they can communicate with their peers.
*HC estimates that by the end of Level I, a typical student will have reached the Novice Mid level of the Proficiency Guidelines created by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines should not be viewed as definitive categorizations of a student’s language ability, but rather as a series of useful descriptions that can provide a student with a general notion of where he/she stands on the language ability spectrum. If you are interested in seeing a description of the Novice Mid level, click here and then scroll down until you reach “Novice Mid.”
Level II
By the end of level II, you will likely find that the range of your abilities will have greatly expanded.* Were you to return to Beijing at the end of this level, you would likely still prefer to travel with a Chinese-speaking friend, but the independence you can exercise would have become a pleasant surprise. Your ability to engage in polite conversation will have become broader, more specific, and more nuanced. You will also find new skills emerging: you will be able to purchase (and bargain) for clothes, as well as order food in a restaurant and purchase it from stores. In areas of speech in which you are comfortable, you will begin to see yourself speaking in sentence length responses, sometimes will little delay for reflection. Comprehension will be at its best where there is a strong context to support your interlocutor’s message. Repetition will still often be required, but you will find yourself having greater success communicating so long as your interlocutor is patient and willing to use slowed and basic speech. At this stage, even though the ability to freelance will remain limited, even students without a particularly risk-taking temperament will be finding greater comfort experimenting with their new skills as result of receptivity with which Chinese typically respond to Chinese language learners.
*HC estimates that by the end of Level I, a typical student will have reached the Novice High level of the Proficiency Guidelines created by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines should not be viewed as definitive categorizations of a student’s language ability, but rather as a series of useful descriptions that can provide a student with a general notion of where he/she stands on the language ability spectrum. If you are interested in seeing a description of the Novice High level, click here and then scroll down until you reach “Novice High.”
Levels III – V Descriptions Coming Soon