Hi Jinhao,
Nice plan on the Mandarin Chinese course! I like it that you are putting the learning in real-life situations for the learners to engage in the language learning by applying it rather than learning the grammars or reciting vocabulary.
I also agree with you that this backwards design thinking it totally different from what I knew about learning design or my learning experience in general. I think we have grown up with the learning habit of being told what to learn but was rarely presented with reasons or directions. I think this may have made us think that learning design starts from the learning contents rather than the objectives and assessments. However by knowing and designing the learning backwards, I find the learning more efficient and by applying the learning contents to real-life situations, I found it more interesting and I tend to learn better.
I think your planning using the language is a very good application because it is very practical and could be applied in real-life occasions easily. I wonder whether you think the principles could be used for designing learning situations with more theoretical subjects such as maths?