This book is written for short-term foreign students studying in China. The book is an oral teaching tool,and is appropriate for students at the intermediate level. It provides materials for 50-60 hours of classroom teaching and it can also be used for self-study.
This book was written according to the principals of teaching Chinese as a second language and reflects years of teaching experience. It has twelve chapters,all based on traditional Chinese sayings. Each chapter consists of a text,a list vocabulary,words and phrases,a section on functioning in a particular situation,speaking exercises,and listening exercises. The content of the texts is based on situations that foreign students encounter while studying in China. The texts teach appropriate usage of the language while taking into account practicality and student interest. Communication is taught in both dialogue and narrative form.
Through the course of writing this book, I often referred to the Chinese Language Vocabulary and Character Standard and the Chinese Language Function Standard,as well as to conversations that occurred in daily life. B level vocabulary makes up over 90% of the vocabulary in this textbook, while a small percentage comes from C level vocabulary and the relatively harder a level vocabulary.
The Situation section includes grammatical structures,vocabulary words, and phrases that are related to the content of the text. These supplementary materials were chosen for their practicality and teachers can select from these materials at their discretion.
To give students more opportunities to listen to and speak Chinese, this book provides many
Speaking and listening exercises. The speaking exercises Include:
(1)“Read the sentence aloud using correct tones and pronunciation.” Foreign students find tones and pronunciation especially difficult and this aspect of Chinese requires additional practice. The goal of these exercises is to strengthen students’pronunciation skills and their ability to speak the language naturally.
(2)“Common Phrases Substitution Exercise.” This section comprised of selected common phrased and sentence patterns form the text. It uses the substitution method to help students achieve familiarity and understanding, making the use of the phrases and patterns habitual. This book does not merely explain the meaning of phrases; instead, it helps students learn through practice.
(3)“Imitate the dialogue.” This section uses selected verbal expressions to teach students how to communicate in a dialogue situation.
(4)“Social Communication Exercises.”These include “Create a conversation given a scenario.” And “Answer the questions.” These exercise allow students to communicate beyond the text and discuss matters related to themselves.
(5)“Express the following topics in a paragraph.”This section contains text-related topics and allows the students to freely express useful ideas and feelings.
The listening exercises are divided into two sections: Text Exercised and Outside Exercises. The former is comprised of complicated sections of the text, while the latter is comprised of text related listening exercises. Each chapter includes a paragraph of comprehension listening exercise. The exercises are modeled on the HSK question structure, and were constructed after researching foreign language teaching methods.
Because listening and speaking are closely related language skills, teachers can vary the order of the exercises according to their classroom situations.
Teachers can use the stand-alone unit between Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 as they see fit. It can be used to stimulate students’ interest in Chinese, as well as to enliven the classroom environment.