Intermediate Chinese Speaking (2)

Author: Liu Delian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: Learning a foreign language should, in theory, emphasize listening, speaking, reading, and writing equally. However, in actual teaching, it can be adjusted to varying degrees based on students' proficiency and needs. In recent years, many universities in China have set up separate oral Chinese courses for foreign language teaching, focusing on listening and speaking training, which is highly necessary. Foreign friends studying Chinese in China face a completely different environment compared to studying in their own countries. Once they arrive in China, they urgently feel the need to improve their oral skills to adapt to the unfamiliar language and living environment. Relying solely on general Chinese courses to learn grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structures progressively is far from sufficient to meet their daily listening and speaking needs. Dedicated oral courses can effectively address this gap. In recent years, several textbooks have been published in China specifically for foreign friends learning oral Chinese, each approaching the issue of highlighting oral characteristics and creating a clear distinction from other Chinese courses. However, it remains an unsatisfactorily resolved problem. The vocabulary selected for this textbook (Second Edition) primarily consists of words from Level B and above in the "Outline for Chinese Proficiency Vocabulary and Character Grades" published by the National Office for Teaching Chinese to Foreigners. Level A words and some commonly used Level B words are not included as vocabulary. This new edition of the textbook has been revised and supplemented with additional lessons, expanding from the original two volumes into three. The three volumes contain a total of 52 lessons, featuring vivid and natural oral dialogues that cover scenarios students might encounter in their studies and daily lives to meet readers' needs. It strives for innovation and breakthroughs, emphasizing the characteristics of oral Chinese textbooks. Its features are primarily reflected in the following aspects:
First, several main characters run through the entire textbook, each with distinct personality traits, allowing them to express language in different styles. At the same time, overly Beijing-centric colloquial expressions have been appropriately adjusted to cater to users from various regions.
Second, it pays attention to social trends, discarding outdated or soon-to-be-outdated language. When arranging lesson content and language, it looks forward, incorporating introductions to emerging social phenomena and related conversational materials into the lessons. In terms of format, it adds "Sentence Comprehension," providing examples and explanations for some colloquial statements that are difficult to understand solely from the literal meaning.
Third, it introduces many lively and diverse exercise types. It includes a large number of practical exercises that progress from simple to complex, shifting the focus from "word-based" to "sentence-based" exercises, emphasizing situational dialogues and teaching students to express appropriate language in different scenarios.
Fourth, systematic explanations of oral language knowledge. It systematically summarizes frequently used linguistic phenomena in oral Chinese, covering aspects from oral phonetics to grammar.
Fifth, supplementary common oral expressions. At the end of each unit, it adds "Common Oral Expressions," categorizing and appropriately summarizing frequently used communicative language in oral Chinese. This helps students understand different ways of expressing the same scenario.