Media Chinese: Design and Practice

Yuan-Yuan Meng

Columbia University

China’s opening up to the world and the explosion of the internet and blogs have made Chinese-language media an important and growing sector of Chinese society. Government-controlled news sources like Xinhua and CCTV, more liberal newspaper and magazines like Southern Weekly and Caijing, overseas Chinese-language media, the ever-growing Chinese language blogs, and China’s rapidly developing television programming, among others, have all become fascinating windows into modern Chinese society, culture, and politics. This is especially true as foreigners begin to interact more fully with Chinese media and popular culture. For learners who wish to make a career working in China, being able to access Chinese media and popular culture is an increasingly vital skill.

This paper describes the pedagogical design and implementation of an advanced-level Chinese course, Media Chinese. The course is created to meet the needs of the above-mentioned Chinese learners, whose goals are to acquire practical Chinese language, both formal and informal, from various media sources so that they can better meet the challenges of their work or future academic pursuit. The creation of this course begins with an assessment of learner needs, which provides information about what topics, language, and linguistic skills are relevant to their interests and lives. In addition to the training of the four language skills, this course also aims to increase students’ cultural understanding of China through the use of television programs, radio broadcasts, online newspapers, blogs, and movies. This paper addresses the issues of course objectives, instructional materials, teaching strategies, and assessment methods. Student motivation and feedback as well as the challenges in implementing such a course will also be discussed.