German (Bilingual in German and English)

1. Program Description

The Discipline of German Language and Literature at the School of Foreign Languages and Cultures was set up in 2008, when it embraced its first session of undergraduates (oriented to German and English) in autumn. Thanks to a faculty with high academic degree, rich teaching experience and impressive capability in science research, the discipline enjoys distinguished teaching achievements: Undergraduates of this discipline are doing great in PGG-4 and PGG-8, with their grades and passing rate high on the list of China’s universities and colleges. The discipline also maintains close connections with many German universities, to which it assigns certain undergraduates with fine qualities and scholar every year as an exchange program, furthering its concept of internationalizing education. In the world of deepening economic globalization, the discipline actively promoted reform and has adopted a five-year undergraduate (bi-foreign languages) program, aiming to open a new pattern for ‘Fine Cultivation for Applicable Talents’.

2. Program Duration and Credit

This is a five-year undergraduate program, which can be completed within a minimum of four years and a maximum of seven years.

A total of 185 credits are required upon the completion of the program.

3. Curriculum

Three modules of courses are offered for the program: Basic Curriculum, Essential Curriculum, and Elective Curriculum. The Basic and Essential curricula are compulsory for a Bachelor’s degree.

The Elective Curriculum in the list includes extended disciplinary courses offered by the School into which an individual student is admitted, as well as cross disciplinary courses offered by other schools. Students can choose the extended and cross disciplinary courses according to their personal interests and career plans; however, credits should be approved by the School.

（1）Basic Curriculum

Course Code	Course Title	Credit	Semester	Remark
100502052101	An Introduction to Foreign Languages and Literatures	2	1
100502052102	Seminars: Studying Foreign Languages and Cultures	1	1
100502052103	Comprehensive English (1)*	3	1
100502052104	Comprehensive English (2)*	3	2
100502052105	Comprehensive English (3)*	3	3
100502052106	Comprehensive English (4)*	3	4
100502052216	Basic German (I)	14	3
100502052217	Basic German (II)	14	4
100502052218	Intermediate German (I)	10	5

（2）Essential Curriculum

Course Code	Course Title	Credit	Semester	Remark
100502053085	Intermediate German (II)	12	6
100502053082	Advanced German (Ⅰ)	6	7
100502053083	Advanced German (Ⅱ)	6	8
100502053076	German Listening & Speaking (Ⅰ)	1	5
100502053077	German Listening & Speaking (Ⅱ)	1	6
100502053073	Advanced German Audio-Visual & Speaking (I)	2	7
100502053074	Advanced German Audio-Visual & Speaking (II)	2	8
100502053078	An Introduction to German Linguistics	2	8
100502053081	An Introduction to German Literature	2	9
100502053079	German Writing (I)	2	6
100502053080	German Writing (II)	2	7
100502053072	German-Chinese Translation	2	8
100502053084	Chinese-German Translation	2	9
100502053075	German Thesis Writing	1	9
100502052209	A Practical Course in English Phonetics	2	1
100502052201	Conversational English	2	1
100502052202	English Viewing, Listening and Speaking 1	2	1
100502052203	English Viewing, Listening and Speaking 2	2	2
100502052204	English Viewing, Listening and Speaking 3	2	3
100502053014	Advanced English Reading and Writing 1	2	5
100502053015	Advanced English Reading and Writing 2	2	6
100502053002	Graduation Internship	4	10
100502053001	BA Dissertation	4	10

（3）Elective Curriculum

Course Code	Course Title	Credit	Semester	Remark
100502054002	Must-Read Books 1	2	4
100502054003	Must-Read Books 2	2	8
100502054004	Competition, Research and Training	2	Any
100502054016	Social Practice	2	Any
100502054080	Introduction to German-speaking Countries	2	7
100502054082	German Newspaper Reading (I)	2	7
100502054083	German Newspaper Reading(II)	2	8
100502054084	German Grammar		6
100502054086	Economy German		8
100502054081	Practice in German Interpreting		9
100502054135	Chinese Culture (German)	2	9
100502054079	German Culture	2	9
100502054034	An Introduction to Chinese Culture (German)	2	4
100502054035	An Introduction to Chinese Literature	2	4
100502054025	English Films	2	5
100502054005	Contemporary Western Literary Theories	2	2
100502054036	WTO Law	1	8	9 weeks
100502054011	Semiotics	2	2
100502054077	American History	2	3
100502054021	British Cultures and Society	2	5
100502054022	Selected Readings from English Press	2	7
100502054085	A Global History of the Cultural Exchanges between the West and the East	2	6
100502054028	The History of the English Language	2	5
100502054033	Language and Mind	1	8	9 weeks
100502054010	Translation for Legal Texts	2	6
100502054014	Translation For Business and Trade Texts	2	6
100502054018	Research Methods in Foreign Language Teaching	2	8
100502054015	Business English Reading	2	6
100502054012	English Correspondence for International Trade	2	8

(Note:

1. The odd-number semesters are the fall semesters and the even-number semesters are the spring semesters in the academic years.

2. The asterisk * marks a core course.)

4. Core Courses and Descriptions

 100502052103  Comprehensive English (1)  (3 cr.)  

100502052104  Comprehensive English (2)  (3 cr.)

100502052105  Comprehensive English (3)  (3 cr.)

100502052106  Comprehensive English (4)  (3 cr.)

Prerequisites: None

Comprehensive English (1)-(4) is a fundamental major course for freshmen and sophomores. Its main tasks include the teaching of essential English knowledge, the comprehensive and strict training of elementary skills, developing students’ practical application of language, introducing reasonable methodology, and thereby ensuring a solid foundation for advanced studies in the third and fourth years.   

Comprehensive English is a fundamental major course for freshmen and sophomores. Its main tasks include the teaching of essential English knowledge, the comprehensive and strict training of elementary skills, developing students’ practical application of language, introducing reasonable methodology, and thereby ensuring a solid foundation for advanced studies in the following years. Comprehensive English (1) & (2) requires that students further enlarge the vocabulary to 3500, competently utilize grammar in practice, and skillfully articulate via writing and speech-making. Essential English (3) requires that students further enlarge the vocabulary by another 2000, competently utilize grammar in practice, and skillfully articulate via writing and speech-making. Comprehensive English (4) requires that students further enlarge the vocabulary by another 2000, competently utilize grammar in practice, and skillfully articulate via writing and debating.

100502052216  Basic German (I)  (14 cr.)

Prerequisites: None

Basic German (I) is a professional basic course set for German majors who start from scratch. Through learning and practicing, students are supposed to master the basic rules of German pronunciation and the basic knowledge of German grammar; they are supposed to know enough vocabularies so that they are capable of making daily communications and doing written works to some extent. In the course of language learning, some elementary knowledge of national conditions about German countries should be introduced to the students.

Basic German (I) falls into two major parts: the pronunciation and some expressions in daily communication. For the pronunciation, students should master the spelling and pronouncing rules of German; for the daily communication, students should not only master some means of expressions, but also learn German national conditions, trying to avoid the Chinese German. After finishing Basic German, the students’ linguistic ability is able to match the degree of A1 in accordance with the criteria of European language. 

100502052217  Basic German(II)  (14 cr.)

Prerequisites: None

Basic German (II) is a follow-up course of Basic German (I). After the learning and practices of Basic German (II), on the basis of the German knowledge acquired in the earlier stage, students’ ability of listening, speaking, reading and writing can be further improved. In regard of the subject matter, except for some themes related to the daily life, some texts about social life are also covered; in regard of the type of texts, except for some general dialogues and narrations, there are also news report,  interview, letter, journal, TV talk show, advertisement, poetry, joke and so on. And there are also many listening exercises. After finishing Basic German (II), the students are able to live in Germany freely, reaching the degree of A2 in accordance with the criteria of European language.

Basic German (II) mainly falls into four major parts: some common German expressions in daily life; some musings about learning and life attitude; the characteristics of various genres; the basic rules of German grammar.

100502052218  Intermediate German (I)  (10 cr.)

Prerequisites: None  

Intermediate German (I) is a core course set for bilingual students of German and English in the first semester of their junior year, aiming to further widen their grammatical knowledge, and enable students to acquire some basic German sentence structures, continue to improve their ability of listening, speaking, reading, writing and vocal communication, and continually accumulate the basic  knowledge of German countries.  Then students can gradually approach the aims of acquiring the ability of listening, speaking, reading, writing and vocal communication stipulated by the basic German syllabus of national higher learning institutions, thus preparing students  for PGG. At the end of this stage, students are supposed to meet the following required abilities:

1. being better at reading, writing, and translating clauses between German and Chinese;

2. being able to conduct general views illustration and discussion centered on themes of teaching unit , with the language expression relatively smooth, words quite appropriate, and no serious mistakes.  

Basic English Writing (I) will introduce four patterns of essay development: description, narration, exemplification, process. Students will also learn basic sentence skills in terms of grammar, mechanics, punctuation and word choice. The course will follow the mode of lecturing-demonstrating-writing – evaluating.

100502053085  Intermediate German (II)  (12 cr.)

Prerequisites:  None

Intermediate German (II) is a core course set for bilingual students of German and English in the second semester of their junior year, aiming to further widen the grammatical knowledge, and enable students to know and master some basic German sentence structures, continue to improve their ability of listening, speaking, reading, writing and vocal communication, and be able to conduct their view illustration and general discussion about the basic cultural differences between China and Germany. Intermediate German (II) enables students to meet the requirements of acquiring the ability of listening, speaking, reading, writing and vocal communication stipulated by the basic German syllabus of national higher learning institutions. At the end of this stage, students are supposed to meet the following required abilities:

1. being better at reading, writing, and German primary writing;

2. being able to conduct general views illustration and discussion centered on teaching material unit theme, with the language expression relatively smooth, words quite appropriate, and no serious mistakes.

3. passing the PGG.

Basic English Writing (II) will introduce four patterns of essay development: description, narration, exemplification, process. Students will also learn basic sentence skills in terms of grammar, mechanics, punctuation and word choice. The course will follow the mode of lecturing-demonstrating-writing – evaluating.

The main teaching content of Intermediate German (II) comes from Active German IV (excerpts) and German Integrated Course III (excerpts).  Twelve units with separate topics are involved in Active German IV, each unit covering introduction, text, vocabulary introduction, grammar, vocabulary list and so on. The topics cover “Transformation of Values”, “Gender Differences”, “Drama”, “Austria and Switzerland”, “Bibliographic Retrieval”, “Germany”, “Manufacture and Labor”, “Economy and Ecology”, “Art”, “How to Make Reports”, “Cultural Difference” and “German”, with each unit attached  2 or 3 texts and relevant vocabulary. The grammar involved includes the use of subjunctive in indirect speech, functional verbal phrases, the adjectives, the subjective usage of modal verbs, the second genitive of German, brief summary, the transformation between clauses and prepositional phrases and so on. German Integrated Course III mainly serves as extracurricular content for independent study, including ten different units.

Aiming to the PGG held in June every year, the teacher is going to prepare more practice tests of the past exam papers, offer before-exam training and analysis of testing techniques.

100502053082  Advanced German (II)  (6 cr.)

Prerequisites: None

Upon completion of Advanced German (Ⅱ), students are expected to:

1. master the skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating;

2. conduct general topic discussion fluently and properly in German without serious mistakes. While teaching students to communicate in German, the course helps to broaden their knowledge and horizon as well, thus improving their humanistic quality and critical thinking ability.

Advanced German (Ⅱ) is designed for German & English undergraduates in their fourth year. On the basis of further consolidating students’ German vocabulary and grammar at the early stage of study, the course aims to improve their basic skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating and their pragmatic ability of language use; to help them better understand German national conditions of research and practice in colleges and universities, economy, society, families, environmental protection and literature; and to build their in-depth oral presentation ability. With the help of such modern multimedia teaching methods as audio and video, the course will improve teaching quality and help students to pass the “bottleneck stage” in language study.

 100502053076  German Listening & Speaking (Ⅰ)  (1 cr.)

Prerequisites: None

German Listening & Speaking (Ⅰ) is a basic course for first and second-year  German majors, aiming to develop students’ basic listening skills. The course partly focuses on related exercises to the textbook, and partly on listening and speaking materials as required by teachers. Through varied types of listening texts, the course, on the one hand, facilitates students’ with knowledge of German pronunciation, intonation and common expressions, and on the other hand, helps students to gradually enlarge vocabulary and better understand German-speaking countries’ national conditions, therefore to meet the requirements of teaching syllabus.

German Listening & Speaking (Ⅰ) is offered at the second semester of the first German-learning year. The course, with the help of Training on Speaking and Listening matching with Active German, focuses on correcting students’ pronunciation and intonation and on doing listening exercises related to the textbook in the early stage, including self-introduction, college life, shopping and gifts, time and festivals, visiting, going to restaurants, phone calls, watching TV, asking for directions, etc. On the basis of understanding the content, students will start to practice free talk and then succeed in the circle of input-digestion-output. Students are arranged to do pair work  independently to demonstrate a dialogue, and listeners’ understanding will be checked through questions. In the later stage to promote the internalization of German, dictation training will be introduced to serve checking how students have mastered German pronunciation. The other key task of the course is to cover some PGG-related listening exercises, and to deliver some answering techniques. The ratio between teaching and practice is half and half in the course.

100502053077  German Listening & Speaking (Ⅱ)  (1 cr.)

Prerequisites: German Listening & Speaking (Ⅰ)

German Listening & Speaking (Ⅱ) is a basic course for first and second-year German majors, aiming to develop students’ basic listening skills. The course partly focuses on related exercises to the textbook, and partly on listening and speaking materials as required by teachers. Through varied types of listening texts, the course, on the one hand, facilitates students’ with knowledge of German pronunciation, intonation and common expressions, and on the other hand, helps students to gradually enlarge vocabulary and better understand German-speaking countries’ national conditions, therefore to meet the requirements of teaching syllabus.

German Listening & Speaking (Ⅱ) is offered at the first semester of the second year. The course, with the help of Training on Speaking and Listening matching with Active German, focuses on doing listening exercises related to the textbook, including traveling, seeing a doctor, doing sports, getting a job, television media, network communications, manners and customs, etc. The course’s requirements on “speaking” is to practice logical and self-justification statements based on the completion of understanding intermediate listening. Students are arranged to play a theme video and express their views independently, and listeners’ understanding will be checked through questions. The other key task of the course is to cover dictation to PGG level through corresponding intensive exercises. The answering techniques of listening exercises are also delivered. The ratio between teaching and practice is half and half in the course.

100502053073  Advanced German Audio-Visual & Speaking (I) (2 cr.)

Prerequisites: German Listening & Speaking (I & II)

Advanced German Audio-Visual & Speaking (I) course provides students with the opportunity to practice and improve their listening and communication skills in German by means of enormous audio and video files. On the completion of this course, students are required to understand German Radio (Television) Station News and conduct general thematic discussion in German with fluency, proper dictions and no great mistakes.

Students have the opportunity to do oral practice on the basis of course principle---viewing and listening-oriented. The class practice accounts for 50% of the whole course. Teachers introduce students to oral practice in accordance with the viewing and listening materials. The teaching quality is improved by taking advantage of modernized teaching facilities such as multimedia audios and videos.

The viewing and listening materials include different documentaries relating to contemporary and typical figures from German-speaking countries, events and local customs and practices.

100502053074  Advanced German Audio-Visual & Speaking(II)    (2 cr.)

Prerequisites: German Listening & Speaking (I & II); Advanced German Audio-Visual & Speaking (I)

Advanced German Audio-Visual & Speaking (II) provides students with the opportunity to practice and improve their listening and communication skills in German by means of enormous audio and video files. On the completion of this course, students are required to understand German Radio (Television) Station News and conduct general thematic discussion in German with fluency, proper dictions and no great mistakes.

The students have the opportunity to do oral practice on the basis of course principle---viewing and listening-oriented. The class practice accounts for 50% of the whole course. Teachers introduce students to oral practice in accordance with the viewing and listening materials. The teaching quality is improved by taking advantage of modernized teaching facilities such as multimedia audios and videos.

The viewing and listening materials generally include excellent Germany literature, intensive TV news via Germany TV Station and Hörspiele (Radio Play). The modernized contents and abundant information reflect latest various aspects of society and living conditions in German-speaking countries. Attention will be paid to the integration of knowledge and practice and emphasis is put on cultivating and improving students’ coherent and expressive communication skills.

100502053072  German-Chinese Translation (2 cr.)

Prerequisites:

German-Chinese Translation is an advanced course of undergraduate study of College German. It provides for students who have just completed Basic German and passed PGG, aiming to acquaint them with the features and difficulties of “German-Chinese translation” through a semester’s study. Students will basically acquire the theory, methods and techniques of translation as well as deepen and broaden their prior knowledge of German through a great deal of practices, which also enables them to learn that “translation=comprehension + recreation”. Finally, students will be equipped with the ability to do translation independently.

German-Chinese Translation consists of two parts. The first part is theory teaching. Students will learn varieties of theories about translation, including translation theories and evaluation criteria, assisted tools of translation, elements and techniques of translation, style and translation, contrastive analysis of German & Chinese word meanings, contrastive analysis of German & Chinese sentence structures, context and translation, etc. While teaching, the teacher is required to combine case analyses and class exercises so as to help students deepen their understanding of theories. The second part is practice. Students are required to do translation practices by combining theories and present their translation in groups. The rate of these two parts is 50% and 50% respectively.

100502053084  Chinese-German Translation  (2 cr.)

Prerequisites: German-Chinese Translation

Chinese-German Translation is an advanced course of undergraduate study of College German. It provides for students who have been equipped with the knowledge of basic German and have completed German-Chinese Translation, aiming to acquaint them with the features and difficulties of “Chinese-German translation” through a semester’s study. While helping students deepen their understanding of the theories in German-Chinese Translation and meanwhile apply them into Chinese-German translation, this course will also improve students’ German ability through a great deal of practices and finally equip them with the basic quality of doing two-way translation.

Compared with German-Chinese translation, Chinese-German translation is much more difficult and the key reason is that students’ ability of German output is rather weak. Therefore, this course will follow the theoretical framework of German-Chinese Translation in theory teaching. On the one hand, it will attach less importance to theory teaching and on the other hand, more practice exercises will be given to students to learn the techniques and difficulties of German output, helping them deepen their understanding about these translation theories. As a supplementary course of theory teaching, this course will have more case analyses and improve students’ ability of German output by comparative reading analysis of literature works, political and economic comments, scientific exposition, legal documents and academic papers. The rate of theory teaching and practice is 40% and 60% respectively.

100502053079  German Writing (I)  (2 cr.)

Prerequisites:

German Writing (I) will enable students to have a certain understanding of the most basic Germanic text types through systematic writing training and gradually equip themselves with the basic writing skills and stylistic norms. It will help students improve their writings and they could ultimately have the ability to write essays with some 180 words and basically conform to the German rules of expression and stylistic norms.

The important text types that will be taught in German Writing (I) include official documents (application letters, invitation letters, etc.), personal letters, narrations, picture story writings, etc., with life topics and general social problems that are familiar to the students. This course will gradually eliminate students’ fear for writing by process learning and enable them to do their writing with the language knowledge, discourse knowledge, and basic writing skills that they have acquired.

Three steps are involved in class teaching: first, the teacher will explain the features of text and essentials of writing, and then analyze sample essays; next, students are required to write; after that, the teacher will review each student’s essay and students will make corrections and improvements of their writings later on.

100502053080   German Writing (II)  (2 cr.)

Prerequisites: German Writing (I)

German Writing (II) will enable students to have a certain understanding of the most basic Germanic text types through systematic writing training and gradually equip themselves with the basic writing skills and stylistic norms. It will help students improve their writings and they could ultimately have the ability to write essays with some 180 words and basically conform to the German rules of expression and stylistic norms.

The important text types that will be taught in German Writing II include chart description and interpretation, informative abstract, story outline, positive and negative argumentation etc., with life topics and general social problems that are familiar to the students. This course will gradually eliminate students’ fear for writing by process learning and enable them to do their writing with the language knowledge, discourse knowledge, and basic writing skills that they have acquired.

Three steps are involved in class teaching: first, the teacher will explain the features of text and essentials of writing, and then analyze sample essays; next, students are required to write; after that, the teacher will review each student’s essay and students will make corrections and improvements of their writings later on.