BA Chinese Studies

The Chinese Program offers skill level courses, ranging from the elementary to the advanced levels, and topics courses introducing the students to key themes, texts, and figures of modern and premodern China and the Chinese-speaking world. Our mission is to help students attain proficiency in Chinese reading, writing, listening, and speaking. At the same time, since language and culture are intertwined and inseparable, we work with our students toward a higher degree of cultural proficiency. We achieve our goals through activities introducing the students to culturally authentic materials and by using a variety of resources, tools, technologies, and methodologies. Communication between instructors and students in the target language is a regular feature in our classes. We will start with the more colloquial/spoken Chinese and gradually introduce students to the more formal/written language as we move forward, to help our students develop a broader range of conversational and writing skills.