Altogether there are three volumes, each of which is divided into two volumes. The first two are used in the first semester, the third used in the second semester. The course is divided into three stages: the phonetic stage for developing the pronunciation skills and learning common characters, the grammar stage for developing simple communication skills through conversations, and the lexical stage for expanding vocabulary through essays reading, and developing the ability to express themselves. Grammar, words and sentences are put into the real life situations. The textbook consists of six parts: text, new word, explanatory notes , grammar , pronunciation and exercises, containing 100 texts and 3,300 new words in all. Since the publication in 1999, Chinese Course has been receiving warm welcome from the learners and teachers. To meet the increasing needs for the book, it was revised and published again with the joint efforts of the author and the Beijing Language and Culture Universtiy Press. Based on the original frame, the revised edition reduced the number of lessons from 100 to 76, and the degree of difficulty is lowered to enable it to be finished within one year. Outdate texts are deleted, and the contents are revised to make the book timely. The explanations of language points are also modified, and the order is rearranged to make it more convenient for teaching
