Target Audience(Age): College, Adults
Target Audience(Language): Pre-Intermediate
The series of teaching materials Explore theForbidden City, Learn Chinese is divided into two volumes: Explore theForbidden City, Learn Chinese I and Explore the Forbidden City, LearnChinese II. Each consists of three teaching sections, Language Learning,Cultural Knowledge and Manual Experience, and focuses on the history of theForbidden City, the emperors of the Forbidden City, the palaces of theForbidden City, the buildings of the Forbidden City, the sacred beasts andanimals in the Forbidden City, the treasures in the Forbidden City, and thepaintings and drawings in the Forbidden City, teaching second language learnersthe cultural knowledge of the Forbidden City, and focusing on training learners’oral expression, while taking into account the development of reading andwriting skills. The series extends from the core language elements of Chinesecharacters to phrases, sentences and passages, and learners can also makehandicrafts related to cultural themes while learning about the culture of theForbidden City, thus realizing the integrity of “language-culture-interaction”in Chinese language teaching and learning.
About the Author
Zhu Jingjin (Editor-in-Chief) is a PhD, postgraduate supervisor, and the head of AppliedLinguistics at Tianjin Foreign Studies University. She has been engaged inChinese language teaching for many years and has worked as a Chinese languageteacher in several universities in the UK. Her research mainly focuses onsecond language acquisition, Chinese grammar, and research on teaching Chinesegrammar to foreigners. She has published several monographs and textbooks, andmore than 10 papers in journals such as Applied Linguistics and ChineseLanguage Learning, etc., and presided over a number of projects ofPhilosophy and Social Science of Tianjin, Center for Language Education andCooperation of the Ministry of Education, and the International Society forChinese Language Teaching. Moreover, she has guided students to participate inmany competitions, such as Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition forCollege Students, Chinese Teaching Heroes and “Chinese+” National ChineseTeaching Skills Competition, etc., and was awarded the Outstanding Instructor Award.
Sun Qian (Deputy Editor-in-Chief and Associate Senior Translator)is the general Party branch secretary of the School of International Education,Tianjin Foreign Studies University, and was the director of the TeachingDepartment of the Chinese Cultural Centre in Seoul, Cultural Section of theEmbassy of China in Korea, and the director of the Confucius Institute at SoonChun Hyang University in Korea. She has devoted herself to the promotion ofSino-Korean cultural exchanges and international Chinese education for manyyears.
Editorial Review
Explore the Forbidden City, Learn Chinese I consists of threesections: Language Learning, Cultural Knowledge and Manual Experience(interactive experience). It focuses on eight cultural themes of the ForbiddenCity, enabling learners to perceive the culture of the Forbidden City throughvisual, auditory, tactile and other senses, to learn Chinese languageknowledge, improve cross-cultural communication skills, and feel the charm ofthe Chinese civilization.
Suggestion
Explore the Forbidden City, Learn Chinese can be used for foreignstudents in academic courses, short-term courses and credit courses on languageand culture in overseas Confucius Institutes. The first volume is suitable forlearners of Chinese language level above HSK level 3, and the second volume issuitable for learners of Chinese language level above HSK level 4. Each cultural unit includes such three teaching sectionsas Language Learning, Cultural Knowledge, and Manual Experience. The Language Learningsection has two courses with 16 lessons in total spending 32 class hours. The CulturalKnowledge section is accompanied with teacher’s interpreting videos. The ManualExperience section is a practical part of the cultural teaching method, whichcan be arranged by the teacher according to the actual teaching situation.
