150153 KU Reading Practice 2a (2014W)

Targeted training of reading comprehension skills: This encompasses the enlargement of vocabulary and the receptive knowledge of Chinese characters (mainly simplified, but also also traditional characters to a minor extent), since this is the basis for understanding texts in the target language. Another goal is to achieve the ability to analyze and hence understand more complex sentences and paragraphs in order to quickly grasp the gist of texts. In addition, students’ awareness of the difference between oral and written utterances will be promoted and we will practice structures typical of more formal written texts.
We will practice various reading strategies to achieve competence in the areas of "skimming, "scanning", and "reading for detail".
As term-project, we will also read a short authentic novel (collaborative group work), which not only contains useful every-day vocabulary, but also gives the students an interesting insight into cultural differences between China and Europe.