ChiNews On-Web Course Strategies

In the ChiNews-on-Web self-study course you may select any segment in any order. You may select segments according to subject matter or level of difficulty. The course supports a variety of strategies for learning to assist you in your study. You may wish to order your study as described here or devise your own learning plan.

1. PRELISTENING TEST. PRETEST provides several English-language prelistening questions designed to introduce you to the contents of each segment.

STRATEGY: After selecting a title, review the PRETEST to get a sense of the possible contents of the segment. Begin to think about the Chinese language substance of the segment.

2. GLOBAL LISTENING. AUDIO/VIDEO enables you to listen to a segment for global understanding before you proceed to the reading portion. A main goal of the initial listening process should be to skim for essential information and to confirm or refine any previous assumptions you may have made about the segment based on the pretest.

STRATEGY: Play the entire news segment through once without interruption and take notes in a text editor such as Notepad or Microsoft® Word. You may wish to jot down key sentences, main ideas or comprehension questions in English or Pinyin romanization.

STRATEGY:  Utilize the Scanning and Instant Replay Control Bar on the audio/video player to scan and review the segment for further details. This feature is also helpful when you are learning to transcribe and translate news segments. The audio tool has a timer which allows you to monitor the progress of the news segment in seconds. You can use this function to take note of certain time points in the segment and return later for further review or clarification.

3. VISUAL CONFIRMATION OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION. TEXT enables you to view a transcript of the audio/video segment in either Pinyin romanization or Chinese characters to visually reinforce the segment.

STRATEGY: Utilize the Pinyin font if your study focus is on developing listening comprehension.

STRATEGY: Use the Style key (Word Group, Syllables, Regular) to facilitate your processing of the text by enabling you to organize the material into meaningful words, phrases, and sentences. Follow up your initial listening comprehension activity by using the text and either Play on the audio/video player or Sound in the Character window. Sound plays the news segment at a standard and slower speed than the audio/video player.

STRATEGY: Check your understanding of the text and its main points by highlighting one or more of four function keys at the bottom of the screen.

4. DICTIONARY CHECK AND CONFIRMATION. VOCABULARY and GRAMMAR enable you to fill in gaps in your comprehension of a segment. Try first to understand the general content of the segment before you rely on these dictionary and comprehension features.

STRATEGY: VOCABULARY presents Chinese characters, Pinyin romanization and basic English definitions from the text segment. Example sentences in characters, romanization, and English equivalents also appear for select entries to explain the use of certain significant words in context.

STRATEGY: GRAMMAR is designed to help you understand the meaning and usage of important grammatical patterns and structures. This feature is useful when you are scanning the segment text for detail information.

5. FINAL CHECK ON COMPREHENSION . TRANSLATION provides a word-for-word gloss for every sentence in its order of appearance in the segment. It also provides an English-language translation for the entire segment.

STRATEGY: These windows should be used as a last resort, only if you find previous strategies insufficient to fully comprehend the segment. If you rely solely on Gloss and TRANSL to determine key points of the segment, you probably do not fully comprehend the Chinese-language substance of the segment.

STRATEGY: Click on any sentence in the Chinese character text and an English-language equivalent will be highlighted.

6. SELF-EVALUATION. QUIZ is a self-evaluation mechanism to test your general comprehension of the segment. The passing score of 80% is considered adequate for continuing on within the course.

STRATEGY: The quiz content for the audio program is based on the comprehension of factual or expository information. The quiz for the video program includes both global questions and specific questions of ‘how’ and ‘why’. The quiz is designed to gauge your progress. Results of the quizzes may also be used by the course developers to assess the adequacy of various types of information provided in each segment and the validity of the program.