Chinese Textbook Review – Developing Chinese (发展汉语)
Chinese Textbook Review – Developing Chinese (发展汉语)
The Developing Chinese (2nd edition) has been published based on the well-designed structure of the 1st edition. This series of textbooks are learning tools strategically crafted for those who want to seriously learn and improve their knowledge and skills in the Chinese language.
For Whom:
This series of Chinese Language Learning
Textbooks are intended for:
- self-taught Chinese learners.
- undergraduates who major in the
Chinese language. - students enrolling in long-term
programs both inside and outside China.
Design:
There are 28 volumes with a total of 34
books that are divided into elementary, intermediate and advanced levels. Each
level has five different series which include: the comprehensive textbooks, the listening, the speaking, the reading,
and the writing. These textbooks are systematical-designed and
well-organized. The purpose of the design is to aid learner’s progress in his
language skills, integrate Chinese capabilities as well as enhance their
learning interest.
Among these, “the comprehensive textbooks” is the main learning resource material and the most widely used. Other series are taken as supporting materials that can help strengthen the specific areas of the Chinese Language Learning which the learners need to master. Thus, the following is mainly a review of the comprehensive series of books.
Structure:
The elementary level is for the total
beginners and elementary level learners.
The intermediate level contains a
vocabulary of 2000 – 2500 words.
The advanced level contains a vocabulary of 3500 – 4000 words.
|
Comprehensive Series |
Suggested Numbers of classes * Class Hours |
|---|---|
| Elementary volume 1 |
30 * 9 |
| Elementary volume 2 |
25 * 6 |
| Intermediate volume 1 |
15 * 6 |
| Intermediate volume 2 |
15 * 6 |
| Advanced volume 1 |
15 * 6 |
| Advanced volume 2 |
15 * 6 |
Achievements & Content:
The elementary level (2 volumes):
It aims to help learners to solve the most
fundamental problems during their daily life and study. It’s about improving
the comprehensive abilities such as listening and speaking skills.
There are a total of 30 lessons in volume
1. The topics are arranged from the introduction, basic social interactions,
fundamental description of objects or issues and etc. A total beginner can even
start with this volume because the whole pronunciation part is taught at the
beginning of the lesson. The introduction has three parts which are the
phonetic section, text section (text, vocabulary, grammar, exercises) and characters
section.
After learning all the phonetics, the last two
remaining sections in each lesson will gradually remove pinyin from the texts
in a reasonable pacing to ensure mastery.
There are 25 lessons in volume 2. The
topics vary from daily activities such as travel experience to lifestyles. Each
lesson contains commonly used grammar, word order, and sentence pattern. You
can also learn some Chinese slang and culture. From this volume, all
vocabulary, grammar, exercises, and cultural lessons are all based on the main
article. Understanding each reading passage is the key to learn how this
language works in daily life context. There are also several questions right
next to each paragraph in order to inspire you to understand the content
better. The exercise part is also very abundant including the grammar exercises
and the general comprehensive exercises.
The intermediate level (2 volumes):
There are 15 lessons in each intermediate volume. There are diverse topics and genres mostly associated with modern society including Chinese celebrities’ stories, social problems, and some articles from magazines or books. All the topics are also very communicative and conversational since it also reflects the real life of Chinese people. It focuses on helping the learners train their expressions in paragraphs and the organization of simple texts. Learners can also know some basic knowledge about Chinese culture as well as developing cross-cultural consciousness. There is a language point summary after every five lessons. In each lesson, there are key grammar points or sentence patterns to learn. After the 2 volumes of books, you can reach the intermediate level.
The advanced level (2 volumes):
The advanced level volumes aim to help
learners understand complicated language materials on various occasions. This
encourages learners to exchange ideas with others on common topics and enable
them to utilize general narrative, expository and argumentative expression.
After learning with this series, learners can understand the major concepts and
spirit of Chinese culture.
There are 15 lessons in each advanced
volume. Language is used in more professional and higher contexts such as idioms
and slangs. Learners will be able to understand and express appreciation more
of the modern and traditional Chinese culture.
The first part of the advanced level is
quite different from the previous elementary and intermediate levels. The first
part of the advanced level mainly focuses on learning characters and vocabulary
words. The first volume uses the radicals and the formation of characters to
help the learners review and get a more systematic understanding of the Chinese
characters. The second volume focuses on the formation of words that help them
sort out the words that may have already learned and to memorize new words.
Materials:
Each Volume includes an MP3 CD containing
audio recordings to help you with vocabulary pronunciation, texts and listening
practices.
Exercise
Each volume provides diverse types of
exercises, questions, and multi-level exercises. All three levels have their
own particular emphasis. For example, the elementary level focuses more on the
pronunciation drills; the intermediate level focuses more on the grammar
exercises; the advanced level particular emphasizing the systematic formation
of words and comprehensive understanding of the article.
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