Details

ExerciseBook for Writing Chinese Characters and Essays is an accessory product of the series Easy Steps to Chinese (2nd Edition).

The2nd edition of Easy Steps to Chinese is especially de-signed fornon-Chinese background students, who are learning Chinese as a second/foreignlanguage. The series can be used by secondary school students as well as fifthand sixth graders in primary schools.

This series will help students establish a solid foundation of Chinese in terms ofcharacters, words, sentences and grammar through natural and gradualintegration of language, themes and culture. The simultaneous development oflistening, speak-ing, reading and writing is especially emphasized. The ultimateaim is to help students develop communication skills in Chinese in real-lifesituations and express their viewpoints appropriately, precisely, logically andcoherently.

The series consists of seven books in three stages:
Stage1 (Books 1, 2, 3): the focus of this stage is to establish a solid foundation through the learning of pinyin, characters, vocabulary and grammar. The aim isto help students foster an interest in learning Chinese and develop skills inusing simple Chinese for communication.

Stage2 (Books 4 and 5): the focus of this stage is to learn more vocabulary and grammar so that students are able to use the language functionally when communicating with people in real-life situations.

Stage 3 (Books 6 and 7): the focus of this stage is toprovide students with authentic materials, and help them develop com-municationskills. It is believed that when the time comes, the students will be confidentin expressing their viewpoints pre-cisely, appropriately, logically andcoherently in both oral and written forms.

About the Author
Ms. Yamin Ma has an M.Ed. in Curriculum Design andInstruction from Queen’s University, Canada. She used to teach English at bothsecondary and university levels in Shanghai (China), Hong Kong (China) andKingston (Canada) for over 10 years and has taught Chinese at primary andsecondary levels in Hong Kong (China) for more than 20 years. Ms. Ma has beenthe Head of the Chinese Department in Island School (located in Hong Kong,China) for over two decades and has taught IGCSE, AS/A-Levels and IB Language Bcourses. 

Editorial Review
In order to meet the students' needs to prepare for various exams and to achieve good grades, the core vocabulary, gram-mar and requirements of various examsare taken as reference when designing the series. Some unique features of this series:

Pinyin appears on top of characters at an early stage and is gradually removed as the students develop their Chinese proficiency. The teaching of pronunciation with corresponding exer-cises is designed systematically and scientifically.

The series stresses the importance of teaching basic strokes and compound strokes,stroke order, radicals and character structures. Character writing exercisesare provided to reinforce the learning of characters.

In order for the students to better understand and more easily memorize the new wordsand phrases, an attempt has been made to ensure that only one character in eachphrase is new, and only one meaning of this new character is given. For eachlesson, new words and phrases are listed generally according to the order thatthey appear in the text; however, some phrases containing the same characterare listed together for ease of learning.

Vocabulary expansion is made possible through a good under-standing of the meaning of each character in a phrase. Some of the words that appear in earlier stages arerepeated and prac-ticed in later stages to reinforce and consolidate thelearning.

Grammatical rules are explained in a simple manner, followed by practice exercises in contexts.

Themes are varied and relevant to students’ real life, and are carefully selected according to students’ age group, interest and level of Chinese in each stage.

Listening exercises are evenly spread out in each lesson. The listening script uses thesame topic and vocabulary as in the lesson, while adding some new words that appropriately chal-lenge the students.

Speaking exercises take various forms that are interesting and relevant to students' life so that the students are able to develop communication skills in real-lifesituations.

Reading materials cover a wide range of topics, such as daily life, humanities, arts,history, geography, new technology, en-vironmental protection, etc. The themesof reading are varied and the texts are authentic in nature.

Writing training starts at the outset and remains afocal point throughout the series. The students are expected to use differentstyles and apply what they have learned in the course to write appropriately,precisely, logically and coherently.

Suggestion
· The purpose of this Exercise Book is tohelp students lay a good foundation learning Chinese characters throughrepetition.
· Students are expected to write the strokesof each Chinese character following the correct stroke order provided in theexamples.
· Students are encouraged to sound the wordsand phrases out while copying and remembering the meaning.
· This Exercise Book can beused for copying new words and phrases learned in each lesson, and writingessays. Essays should be written in neat characters following a given promptand specified word limit.

Get email notification for new releases in series Easy Steps to Chinese (2nd Edition)

Name

Email

Submit